


The Joker and The Thief

by My_Dear_Watson



Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 19:10:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3220172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Dear_Watson/pseuds/My_Dear_Watson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Troy had enough to deal with trying to get Stilwater gang-free as possible, but the Saints start a new wave of trouble which leaves them at the center of a family-fueled power struggle to be The Boss. He's roped into taking a side and is fairly sure it's the right one. Then again, things did have a special way of going wrong for him, and juggling his job and loyalty to old friends turns out to be the least of his problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This is Me You're Talking To

Troy Bradshaw was tired. The job was already irksome, but lately it had been awful. The Samedis, Ronin, Brotherhood- he could deal since their attacks were few and far in between. Big, but spaced out. The Saints? His old friends? Every single damn day there was a new attack with countless victims. What made it worse was when he found out that Quinn and Audrey survived the explosion he was relieved. That was, until they started wreaking havoc everywhere. He had wanted desperately to find out that they were going to call it quits soon, but their crimes and body count just kept piling up.

So naturally when one sister showed up at Police HQ and cops had apparently made it within a few feet of his office with no questions asked or no cops flanking her, he was panicked. He caught her movement out of the corner of his eye and froze when he saw her first. He swore under his breath and reached for his gun. He couldn't tell which sister it was at that moment and that made it worse. "You might wanna back the Hell off and quit what you're thinkin'…" he pointed out.

The woman made it to his door. Troy frowned when she sagged against it. He stood up slowly to try and get a better look at her and figure out which sister it was.

She looked up at him, and he relaxed slightly when he saw it was Audrey.

He practically felt life expectancy in the next ten minutes was elevated; at least slightly. "Troy…?" she breathed.

"'Princess…?" he countered. The old nickname seemed sour on his tongue. He took a few steps forward and tried to assess the situation further. She was unarmed- so far, making no move to attack, but why the Hell was she so pale?

"Tr-" she repeated when he reached her, and a moment later collapsed against him and went limp.

He caught her, then spotted a giant bloodstain on her shirt over her side. "Shit! What the fuck?!" he glanced up and saw now other uniforms had arrived and were just staring at the sight to behold. "We need an ambulance now!"

"But Sir, she's-"

"I know what she is, point is she came here to help so we're stuck cleaning up the mess and if there's paperwork to be had with this then you're all gonna be the ones doing it if she dies!" she called. He glanced back down at her. "Kid? Kid, come on," he smacked her cheek lightly. "It was you I still had hope for after all this, come on…" He leaned back. That statement alone made him start going through the usual questions. Who had done this? Why did she come to him? Was this some con? He looked back at the hallway and found at least two of the patrolmen MIA- hopefully doing what he asked. "I want this building swept. Make sure she doesn't have any friends hiding anywhere!" he ordered, then turned his attention back to Audrey. "Shit…" he pulled up her shirt to try and see the damage.

The wound was very real and very, very deep.

He groaned and set the shirt back down. "You're gonna be fine. I'm most definitely regretting this later, but you're gonna get fixed up."

* * *

Five days.

She had been out for five days. Eight of those hours on the first day had been in surgery. Troy hadn't known what kept him coming back during visiting hours. Or maybe he just didn't want to admit it, he wasn't exactly sure.

What he was sure about was that the last time he had set eyes on Audrey before this it had been That Day, and the last thing she did was smile and offer a wave that had twisted his gut so hard his head was still swimming while driving away. Maybe that was it, he just didn't want to have the two last experiences with one of his closest friends in the Saint be pre-backstab and her final minutes. He wanted to be there to say he  _was_   _there for her_. The logic made less and less sense as the time ticked by.

That fact alone had him heaving a sigh and getting up to leave when there was a creak from the bed. He flinched and turn around.

Audrey was merely aware someone was in the room with her and she blinked blearily at him for a while, as if wondering if he was even there. He had contemplated bolting again when her voice finally came, "…Troy?"

"Hey, Princess…" he greeted. When she went to lean up, he touched her arm. "Easy. Whoever did that did a number on you."

She relaxed all but her arm under his touch. "I… didn't expect you to be… here. And don't call me that."

"You came to me, what did you expect me to do?" Troy countered. "And… sorry? I'm just used to it."

"I expected you to drop me off- hopefully here, and wash your hands of this- the Saints," she answered the first question and shrugged off the second counter.

"Well, all of you are making that impossible," he replied, then straightened out. "Who did this to you? Ronin? Brotherhood?"

She blinked at him again, then something seemed to click in her head and her expression darkened. "My fuckin' sister…"

" _Quinn_  did this to you?"

"Why are you surprised? Her latest pastime is cop-killing."

She had a point. Audrey was younger than Quinn by five years, but the pair looked identical so they might as well have been twins. Their personality difference with Quinn as the mentally unstable, eventually trigger happy girl and Audrey as the smart lacky gave them the whole good and evil twin thing that the Saints had been the means of a joke of when he was still there. But when he was there, Quinn wouldn't dare hurt Audrey and leveled anyone who tried. Even now if he heard Quinn and Audrey went on a gang hunt together and there were any of the rivals shot directly between the eyes, thanks to rumor and his own experience he knew the victim had shot at Audrey in the least. But now with him on the outside looking in with Quinn killing as many people as possible, it was a startling change. He wasn't at all sure what to think, all things considered. "Why did she do it?"

"What's this? You're interrogating an old friend already? We haven't even gotten to the awkward 'how are you's…"

"Stop trying to change the subject."

"I challenged her authority."

He hadn't expected her to listen so fast."Wha-"

"She's the Boss now. She runs this town now and wants things done when and how she wants them done. I suggested a less violent means for a-" she stopped short with a cautious glance at his uniform.

Troy let out a breath's worth of a laugh, then turned to the door then back. "You got shot, I ran with you guys back in the day, and I'm sure Quinn already did whatever you're trying to hide by now. You can tell me. I'm not gonna press charges about a case you  _may not have been involved in_." He drew out the last bit so she could understand what he was getting at. When she didn't look convinced about his offer, he scooted closer. "We were friends, Audrey. I had the highest hopes for you getting the shortest sentence because you were…" he meant to reassure her, tell her that her body count was significantly lower than the other Saints, but she was  _most certainly_  a murderer with a decent body count. He had been next to her in a car when she had shot Kings, Carnales and Rollerz with terrifying accuracy. Just thinking of those times snapped him back to vivid memories of sitting in the damn seat next to her and having the equally terrifying thought that it was going to be her that was going to make him and she was going to shoot him dead no problem. But it had been _him_ who had talked her through her panic attack the first time she had to kill some bastard who had tried to kill her. He had seen her through the whole transformation, and he was still scared out of his mind she'd take him out. But she didn't. He had never been on the other side of any of her weapons. Well, that made her the only Saint with that record, so there was that fact he could go on, " _Less_ of a murdering, threatening psychopath. You can tell me."

She smiled, the heavy silence on his part not lost on her. She nodded stiffly. "Robbery. Another Saint and I wanted to get in and out clean like we planned with the first one not long ago, Quinn didn't like that."

"What was wrong with it?"

"No target practice for her and Johnny."

It was his turn to catch her meaning, and even she looked more sick to her stomach. He scooted closer again so his knees brushed the side of the bed and therefore her upper thigh, just to check limits and sighed when she didn't move. "Shit. So she just stabbed you to settle the argument?"

"Mm hm. A lot of other Saints liked my idea just as much. Less potential dying on their part. Problem is now that we've both survived and shit we're legends. She… liked the power that came with it a bit too much. Not just to settle things and shut me up, but get me out of the running."

"Fuck," Troy scoffed. "She's crazier than I thought if she's going after blood in more ways than one."

"You have no idea. She's-" she stopped short. "We were never cut out for this. Either of us. Then you-  _fuck_ ,  _not_ you- Julius, Dex, Johnny- they all shoved guns into our hands and told us to be on their team, go after the ones who shot us just for being there. I was the thief of the two of us, I didn't do that shit. She was the one that was by the book. She was the one who wanted order, what the fuck happened?"

" _A lot_ ," Troy deadpanned. His eyes flicked to her wound. "Did she leave you? Stab you and go? She think you're dead, or did she leave you did she leave you to fend for yourself? Would she know you would… come to me to get you here?" Troy offered.

She watched him for a minute, calculating something. "Pretty sure she left me to die. Still not sure though. I doubt she'll think I'd go to you." After a beat, she exhaled sharply. "Is it too late to get out? Sign a couple of papers, get a new name, get the fuck out of this city?"

Now that got his attention. "Out, like…  _out_ out?"

"Like you wanted for us before we all got blown to Hell. What you wanted us to do when Dex made you."

Troy went from looking concerned to stunned. "How did you-?"

"Your security around your file room sucks. Hell, your office is right there, too. I got called here once to steal some evidence… found tapes of you and Dex having your little chat."

He wasn't sure how to take that particular development, let alone the new direction of the conversation. She wanted out, then admitted to stealing some other evidence, trespassing, hearing everything- did Quinn really stab her now? Or was this a set-up? She'd never lied to him that he'd noticed. That's what made viewing him turning on the Saints slightly worse in his book. So why change now? "Fuck…"

"Woulda been worse if I had found it before the fact, right? Can't feel shocked or go for revenge over something you already know. I've never been cut out for… that, and I… it's shaping up to be like that and I'm not gonna be part of it. So I'd rather disappear than-"

"You think your sister's gonna let you do that if it slips that you're in here?" Troy asked. "I don't wanna risk-"

She scoffed. "Since when the Hell would you care what happens to me?"

That hurt more than he expected it would and he knew it was coming. But it begged the question why did she come to him again? "I already told you. We were friends. Work aside, I do give a fuck about all of you…" he caught the unintentional raise of his voice and caught it, throwing a quick glance at the door to make sure the patrol officers on the other side of the hallway a few feet away hadn't caught it. After a beat, he got up. "Get better, Kid." He headed for the door.

"Hey, Bradshaw."

He stopped short again, then remembered how she had more or less confessed about snooping around his office. Of course she knew too much. He turned back to her and arched an eyebrow.

"You look like shit."

He snorted, then pointed at himself, "Kettle…" he motioned at her, "Pot." He left without another word.

* * *

A few days later when Troy got home and found his front door unlocked, he was apprehensive. The list started up: Bad neighborhood in general, Angry Ronin, Angry Brotherhood, Angry Samedis. And then, of course, there was Angry Quinn or her crew. But he figured he would've already been shot between the eyes if that was the case.

Christ, he knew how to pick friends.

He drew his sidearm and stepped inside. When he reached the kitchen and found Audrey sitting at the counter, gun drawn at him, he wasn't sure what to do yet again.

And then she shrugged and lowered her piece. His piece, he realized with a closer look. "Are you kiddin' me?!"

"Thief," she answered with a shrug, like it answered everything.

He supposed it did. At the same time, however, "No." He advanced on her and held out his hand and took a small amount of comfort when she handed him his gun back.

"Where the Hell else am I supposed to go?! I'm out, I may have no place to stay where they won't find me if they decide to check about loose ends. It depends on what friends go by... friendship and not flags."

"Not to the Police Chief's house!" he insisted, then waved wildly at the tank top and jeans she was in. "And where did you get those?"

"Roommate I had for… two hours before I decided to bail."

He wasn't even going to touch the fact that it meant she had come back to him right after committing a crime. At least it wasn't murder. "Uh, ' _bail_ '? You t _hrew your IV stand out the window and_   _jumped_. You could have opened up your wound! You could have  _died_!" he spared a glance to her side to see if the first bit was true, considering she could be bleeding out on his furniture. Somehow, some way, that wasn't the case. Damn Twins and their might-as-well-be-healing factors. He didn't get it.

"Which says more about those hospital windows than it does me. I mean I did make sure an ambulance was below the window so I wasn't falling twenty feet."

He opened his mouth to fight her again, then sighed. " _No_ ," he repeated. He went to the front door to lock it, then moved back to the kitchen.

"It's like you're protecting a witness or something, ya know, when you're waiting for a place to relocate."

"Right, 'cause… I-it's not how that works, Audrey! Plus it would be a witness in a gang I worked with. People are already giving me shit for brushing Saints shit under the rug!"

Audrey frowned. She had seen that news report. That was one of the things that had thrown her. "Then hire me! I'll be a gang consultant or something!"

"That would work  _less_. Christ, you might not be as violent but you're just as unstable as Quinn."

"I'm trying to work something out where we both win."

"Both of us winning wouldn't involve me losing my job."

She watched him for a minute, then laughed bitterly. "Like you wouldn't see that as okay these days."

Punch of the gut number two, it was. But it didn't hurt this time. Now he was just fuming. " _Excuse me_?"

"Avoiding talking or blaming the Saints, looking fucking miserable in those dress blues-"

"Fuck. You!" he countered. "I could easily just shove you out the door right now, you know that? I _should_. I shouldn't even be talking to you. By rights I should've let you bleed out when you came to me. But no, I didn't. Because I might be a cop but that damn job gave me some moral goddamn center where I couldn't do that to you. So my badge is the only thing that kept you alive from something your sister- the Saints tried to make happen. So don't you dare give me shit for that."

"That wasn't mean to insult, that was meant to ask what the Hell you're still doing there if you're so out of place."

"Well, you did the first one. I have to go see… someone about something. Just- you have three hours to figure shit out, then you have to be gone."

"Fine."

Troy glared again for a few moments, then sighed, tossed his hands up and headed for the front door. He even expected to hear a gunshot again, but nothing came. Choose your battles, he repeated in his head before he made it over the threshold. He cast another nervous glance towards the kitchen before officially leaving. He was in for it, he just knew it.

* * *

When Troy came back from arranging tails on the lower-on-the-food-chain Saints, he was only fairly surprised to see Audrey out cold on his couch. He wanted to be angry, but he knew he had jumped the gun with getting angry. There were far too many emotions and thoughts going on at that point. He wasn't exactly sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that she was still around. With a glance at the clock, he realized she was still good with the time limit he had given. She might have been wasting time this way- might have been playing with him by doing so, a darker part of him pointed out, but it could've just been the exhaustion from recovery catching up with her, too. Then again, the last twenty minutes of his life had been based on the assumption she would've been too proud to leave anyway. He knelt next to her and shook her shoulder. "Audrey. Hey, get up."

Audrey jerked awake, then saw him and glanced towards the clock.

Troy shoved a paper bag in her line of sight. "Peace offering. Come on. You still like general tso's chicken, right?"

"I'm sorry I'm an asshole," she cut him off.

"No you're not."

"You're helping, working off of my suggestion and I gave you a hard time. I went to you because I didn't have anyone else and I'm forcing you to… borderline aid and abet right now. I am."

"Then we're both assholes who are at fault for a buncha shit. Let's move on. Just eat." He opened the bag and handed her one container, then took the seat opposite hers with his own.

She took the fork in the bag and leaned back. "You remembered general tso's was my thing?"

"We were the bag people in more ways than one. The little guys remember shit for other little guys," Troy shrugged.

I… guess I could risk a couple of contacts I can get a place to crash from. I can be out of your hair by-"

"Dree, shut up. You can stay."

She went a bit wide-eyed at his own old nickname for her for a minute, but recovered quickly. "No, you're right, if-"

"Ground rules…" Troy began.

To her credit, she straightened out and looked at him attentively.

"If you wanna get out, make it quick, make it a small radius. No stealing my shit, even if it's to make a point. Touch any of my weapons again, you're out. If there's a lot of foot traffic going by, or if I get a visitor, try to avoid being in sight until I figure out some story for you. No phone, and no fuckin' purple. You got me?"

"Loud and clear."

He nodded carefully, then sighed. "Please promise me you're not gonna make me regret this."

"I'll try-"

"Dree…"

"I'll take that over 'Princess', for the record."

" _Dree_."

"Fine. I promise."

"Good."

"Answer one question first," Audrey leaned back.

"What?"

"If Troy's your actual name why the fuck did you tell us it and risk getting found out that way?"

"… … Go the fuck back to sleep,  _Princess_."

"You know, I changed my mind. I'm not sorry I'm an asshole."

"Mm hm."


	2. Chapter 2

Troy groaned upon seeing Audrey leaning over, checking the map of the city that was pinned up on his wall with gang territory lines highlighted on it. He had hoped the last couple of days had been a very vivid, messed up dream. Apparently higher powers had it out for him. "You're not planning on running off and doing something that'll make me change those lines, are ya?"

She spared a glance at him. "Nope. You're about two weeks off, anyway."

"What? I  _just_ changed that up-"

"Johnny, Vic and I took the rest of the Barrio last week and we worked on getting up to that block the days after that," she explained, pointing to the places on the map as she went.

"Shit…" he sighed. He took a pencil and starred the designated areas, then paused. He took down the map after a minute with a cautious glance at her.

"Oh, come on, Troy."

"I want to trust you, Kid. I really do. Maybe I can. But I'm workin' on it, so until then, this shit's for my eyes only."

"I  _lived it_  until a week ago. I don't need to see it on a map. You're the one who's behind and apparently missing out. How many people do you think you're fooling? Do they really think your attention's evenly divided between all the gangs and other crimes going on around here?"

"Well, when you have your people settin' off bombs left and right and then a few assassinations here and there, drug runners and a giant bashing people's faces in and then driving off in a monster truck, you still have to consider body count. And the Saints have three times the Ronin. And it's probably way more than I thought because I'm not counting all of the poor saps you run over with a car on a daily basis. There may be a survival quota with them."

"Not very likely," she admitted. "Remember the first time I did it on purpose with those Rollerz and you didn't talk to me for a week?"

"Well, at least now you know why," he shrugged.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while until Audrey glanced at the floor. "I missed you…" she said after a while. "You're a backstabbing dick whether you wanted to be in the end or not, and I'm still not exactly sure if I'm done hating you, but I missed you."

"I'll take that. And I missed you too…" he admitted.

She smiled weakly, then bumped her shoulder with his. "Tell anyone and I'll kill you."

"Not funny…" he deadpanned, then sighed. "Let's see what those friends of yours are up to. I haven't gotten a single call and that's worrisome…." He got off of the couch and got the tv remote, turned on the news and dropped right back down.

" _-Jane Valderamma here. There's new footage about of the latest inter-Saints conflict has been released-_ "

"Released?" Troy demanded, but a second later Audrey clamped a hand over his mouth to hear and see the rest. He settled a bit when he realized that it was just a cell phone video. The channel's definition of released.

"  _In this new footage, we see it wasn't just an average case of Saints-style greed that prompted the lastest crime spree. A case of sibling jealousy, or are the Saints getting selective of who makes their cut? Recently our sources caught video of the two leaders of the Saints, usually seen side by side, were seen at odds, and it ended with one of them getting a ninja sword to the gut. Could this mean that The Butcher is connected to the Ronin_ -"

"The Butcher?" Troy repeated. "She's going by the  _Butcher_?"

Audrey groaned when the footage caught up with the story and her face was front and center in the footage. "Fuck… FUCK!" She smacked the arm of the table, then glanced Troy's way since he had been relatively silent.

Troy seemed to be zeroed in on the footage for a while before he finally looked at her with an expression she couldn't read. He settled back down after a minute, then buried his face in his hands.

"… How many of your neighbors watch this news?" she asked.

"Only all of them. Shit," Troy groaned.

"Sounds like it's consultant time. There's my excuse to come to you."

"Then you're gonna have a target on your back because there's no way that'll stay under wraps."

"I'm- I  _was_  the… third in command of the Saints. I have a target on my back the whole time." She looked back at the TV, and Jane was still going on about the situation in front of the building they had been at. "I'm gonna kill her!" she hissed.

"I might let you," Troy countered. When she looked hopefully at him, he sighed. "Not now."

"You sure you don't wanna hire me for something so no one gets suspicious?"

"I… I don't know."

"Then how are we working this? Because the more I think about it the less this… arrangement is making sense. Not that I don't appreciate the help, but it's gonna get old and dangerous either way-"

"Yeah, and then if they see you on camera it's your death sentence."

"So was that!" she motioned at the screen.

Troy shook his head. "You know what I mean."

"Troy…"

"I told you before. We'll… figure it out. I'd be a fuckin' idiot to expect you to be some perfect little angel who obeys the law when you're… stuck here."

"What's this? Police Chief is good with certain people running around, breaking the law?"

"I didn't said that. I said I don't expect you to play nice. There's a difference. Point is I need something that's gonna cause less trouble where we all win and minimal people end up in body bags. I just haven't figured that out yet."

"There's not gonna be one single solution," she replied.

"Yeah. That's part of the problem…" Troy admitted. "I'm never the brains."

"Is that you trying to throw me a bone to throw you a bone? Because I'm not sure yet, either."

"Well then start brainstorming, cause I'm-" Troy cut himself off when his cell phone rang and he checked it. "Because your sister knocked off an entire five blocks worth of stores in two hours and apparently I'm supposed to give a shit. I have to go in and sort shit out. I'll be back soon."

"Alright!"

* * *

Two hours later Troy was hunched over his desk, very much not dealing with his duties. Like he had been with everything in the last week, he wasn't sure what to think about the latest development with the Saints. Quinn had looked beyond pissed when she stabbed Audrey in that footage. That gave her victim status and story a little more weight, but the uneasiness of not knowing whether or not he could trust her was still too damn prominent for his liking. And then there was the actual slaughter that the Saints were causing with their latest fight with the Brotherhood.

"Chief, a girl's in here for a job interview."

Troy glanced up at the receptionist who had poked her head in. "What?"

The woman blinked at him. "Job interview? For the other receptionist job?"

He shook his head. He must've forgotten about it in the latest fiasco. "Right. Bring her in, Angela. Thanks."

Angela stepped out, and Troy rummaged through his desk to try and find any record of the newcomer. When he glanced through the full window, he realized why.

Audrey was looking at him with an unbearably fake nervous look from under a red wig and thick framed glasses. He clenched his jaw, then got up and opened the door. Angela was directly behind her, but he couldn't find it in him to care. They reached the threshold. "N-"

"Chief Bradshaw. Hello, I'm Andrea-"

It took him great effort to unclench his jaw. "Nice meeting you, Andrea. Why don't you have a seat. Thanks, Ang. You can get back to work. Now, Andrea, I remember that you said we  _what the fuck do you think you're doing_?!" he forced the last bit out when he heard the door click closed behind them and all but shoved her into the seat next to him.

"Solved most of our problems the easiest way I could," she shrugged.

" _How_?" was his first question, and he motioned at the wig and the glasses. After a beat, he put his hands up. "Forget it. I don't wanna know."

"Like it? Johnny said I'd look good as a redhead-"

"I don't give a shit! What is this supposed to accomplish?!"

"Gets me in and out of here with no questions asked. I can help you bring down Quinn and her people-"

"And have full access to all the records and cases on anybody-"

"It gets your ass off the line."

"Not if you go stealing shit or looking at things you shouldn't be and they look to you and then the one who apparently did a personal interview with instead of going level by level."

"I only care about the Saints. I won't check out anything else unless it's needed. You end up wanting my help with the others, you've got it if we do it this way."

Troy blanched for a while, then narrowed his eyes. " _Andrea_?"

"Well, let's be real. You're not exactly the most put-together one when emotional so you're bound to call me Dree. I picked the closest one where that nickname wouldn't be a stretch."

He stared at her for a while.

She frowned. "If you want to trust me you're gonna have to give me some rope, here."

"I don't wanna see you hang yourself or us with it."

"Even if I could, even if I wanted to, even if I know this wasn't gonna bite me in the ass, what about you? You think that once this gets out,  _and it will get out_ , at least to the Saints, they're gonna be happy that you'd be the new me? The new me…  _after_  me? They're gonna kill you. Don't do that to me again."

She frowned, having remembered his reaction to the explosion on the tapes. It had been the first timt so far he hadn't sounded like he was trying to convince himself he cared. "Troy, ball's in your court. You wanna get rid of Andrea, get rid of her. It's a safe method is all."

Troy huffed and leaned back. "Alright, Andrea Lewis. You're hired as the new file clerk-"

" _Secretary_ ,"

 _"File Clerk_. You don't have the experience for secretary. As a newbie what you get to handle goes through me first."

"Oh? What's the pay?" she grinned.

"Room and board," he countered.

She grinned, then shrugged. "Sounds like a plan, Boss."

"I-" he stopped short and gave her a disapproving look.

"That's not a bad idea, actually…" she mused and sat on the edge of his desk. "Start up a rival gang to get our shit together. The exiled one and the former one. We could keep the blue, but what would we call ourselves?"

"Idiots, for starters. And off the desk. I don't need a sexual harassment suit on top of this if one of the girls sees you."

"But wouldn't one of those just add the scandal your job needs?"

"All of you are gonna give me some health issue that ends with my untimely death…" he mused.

"Yeah, but you kinda deserve it from us."

Troy shoved her upper body forward. She scrambled off the desk to avoid falling. "Dick..." she muttered.

He smirked at her, then motioned at the door and walked her over to it. He opened it. "Thank you… Andrea. You can come by next week- Tuesday, maybe, and we'll get you all started."

"Thank you, Chief. I'll see you then."

They did a stiff handshake and she all but bolted for the stairs to ensure no one would catch a closer look at the face under the half-assed disguise.

Troy watched her until he lost sight of her. When he did, he sighed heavily and collapsed back into his chair. "I am so  _fucked._ "


	3. Chapter 3

As Audrey realized that the bullet that whizzed past her forehead would've been a perfect headshot if Tobias hadn't grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her towards his side of the car, she finally questioned going on what would've been considered a job for the Saints to and therefore ignoring Troy's pleas.

But at the same time, she hadn't broken the purple rule and Tobias apparently only trusted her to "guard his sweet ass" when he was going on dealing runs, so really, she was just protecting a citizen, and the man had simply given her a fist bump and a snorted "knew it" upon her showing up on his doorstep alive, and she needed the subtlety. The fact that there was pretty much an army of Brotherhood people chasing them made no difference. The ones that got close enough to see her didn't live an additional ten seconds, so she had nothing to worry about.

"If I ever come back from retirement again, remind me about this stuff, will ya?" Tobias deadpanned.

"Same,"

"I thought you were more fired than retired."

"… … Shut up."

"Love you too."

She laughed, then glanced in the mirror. "Coast is clear. Just go home using sideroads."

"Sounds good to me."

They made it within a block of Troy's place when Tobias turned on the radio. Audrey was ready to break something when the second Tobias went for music, a news story came on, referring to the Saints as per usual. He stopped the car and raised the volume.

"- _Conflict with the Brotherhood ended in a tragedy for the Saints when one of their members were shot dead after being dragged by a Brotherhood truck-"_

She jammed her finger on the power button. She stared ahead for a while, trying to sort out every single emotion going through her right now. She was grateful when Tobias remained silent, parked the car and just waited like he knew. "Get me to Police HQ…" she murmured after a moment.

Now that got Tobias' attention. "Do you really think that's where-"

"Just get me there…" she muttered and all but shoved the gun into the truck door's pocket.

That was enough of an answer for him, apparently, because he started the truck and turned on his way.

* * *

They made it halfway to the station when Audrey realizes showing up as herself, or without some hiding method was a bad idea. She had him drive a block away from Troy's, and when they reached that spot, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and suggested having Laura invite her for dinner before she headed for Troy's house. She made it over and then realized she didn't even have a key or anything. He had taken her lockpick when she had broken in the last time.

She looked around and tried to locate a hiding spot. When she spotted the welcome mat that had seen better days, she wanted to die inside. He couldn't be that idiotic, could he? She bent down and flipped it. No luck. Well, at least there was that. She looked around again and spotted a rock on the corner of the stoop. Now that fit him. She lifted it and sure enough, the thing was flat on the bottom and had a little groove where the key was. She took it and unlocked the door. She felt bad for a grand total of ten seconds before she got over it and headed for his room.

She was relieved to find that the room was a mess, just like she would've expected it to be. It would've thrown her more if on top of being a cop the guy would've kept an entirely clean house. She took another couple of guesses at where his sweatshirts could be and like the key, the second choice came through and she settled for a black one. When she spotted his old shirt with the purple stripe that he had worn eighty percent of the time she had seen him back in the day, she held in a scoff. "No purple, my ass, take your own advice…". She stepped back and yanked on the sweatshirt and went on her way.

The half hour walk did nothing to calm her nerves or help her in trying to figure out which Saint got killed. It wasn't her sister- that was either a blessing or a curse. If it was Johnny, people would've known and announced it. Shaundi? Pierce? Carlos? Mac? Desiree? She kept ticking off the names in her head. When she reached the police station, she put up her hood, sat on the curb and waited. Someone was going to spot her eventually or the cops were even more of a loss cause then she thought.

She hadn't expected it to be Troy who found her, but she knew his build and the sense of his presence by now before he sat next to her and she caught the glint of the pins on his jacket as the confirmation. He was at least an arms-length away, probably still keeping up appearances. "Who was it?"

"We don't know," came his quiet reply before he lit up a cigarette.

"Man? Woman?"

"Man. Short, Hispanic."

She flinched and felt her heart drop. "Probably in a tank top and baggy jeans? Purple beanie?"

Troy was silent, and that was all the confirmation she needed. "So… you knew him."

Her throat burned and she exhaled sharply. She pretended not to notice when he moved to sit closer to her. "Carlos Mendoso. He uh, he's the one that broke us out of prison…" she exhaled sharply again. "He was just a fuckin' kid. He worshipped us. Just wanted to help. And Quinn just… shot him?"

"Not… exactly. My boys are saying that the Brotherhood dragged him in their truck… Christ, what am I doing, you don't need to heart that part, but the shot… " it was his turn to sigh and struggle for words. "It sounds like your sister did a mercy killing."

She scoffed. "Go figure."

"He uh, he have any family?"

"We were it. His actual family hated him. That's all we found out. No names or anything. That's how he ended up with us…" she sighed. "So… he's just gonna get an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere?"

" 'Fraid so, unless you want to go talk it out with the people who tried to kill you to claim the body."

She inhaled sharply, then looked at him for a second before looking away.

He had heard enough women crying to know that she had started, which was the least he needed again. And then he realized this was another first. He had seen her panicked and a _lmost_  in tears, but never actually in tears. He hesitated, then put his hand on her shoulder. He wasn't surprised when she shrugged it off. "We'll – _I'll_  get them. The PD will."

"No you won't!" she scoffed and wiped at her eyes furiously. "You couldn't even get  _us_ , Troy! You were attached to us and that's part of it but you let these other bastards- three gangs- take over when we were gone! You're not gonna do shit."

"It's not for lack of trying…"

She opened her mouth to snap at him again, then stopped and shook her head. "I'm… gonna go stay with a friend for a while."

"Audrey-"

"No, it might… it'll probably be good if I get out of your hair. Just… tell me where they bury Carlos." She sighed when he remained silent. "It's not against you, I just… need to think. And it's with a couple of friends who are… not directly in the business if it makes you feel better. And I'll be at work tomorrow…"she paused. "Can we make an exception to my rule and let me just happen to be in the room if anything Brotherhood related is going on?"

He was silent for a while to the point where she assumed she had overstepped, but after a while he exhaled sharply, then took another drag from his cigarette. "Who the fuck am I kidding, I need you for this shit. All my info's outdated by now. I'll see what strings I can pull- without making you, for your sake. Do you need a ride wherever you're headed?"

"No, one friend is pretty damn paranoid so I don't wanna start anything when he and his girl are all I've got."

"Right…"

She motioned at the sweatshirt after a moment to try and defuse the situation more. "I uh, broke the stealing rule too."

"I noticed…" he replied carefully.

She realized he was uneasy because she probably knew she had seen his old shirt. Suddenly the sweatshirt felt more like a test, even if it was her idea. "Could've been a gun or cash…" she pointed out.

"It's fine. I guess we can add 'unless it's absolutely needed' to that rule…"

"Works for me," she shrugged.

"Yeah, I figured, ya creep…" he sighed, then pushed off the stairs with a grunt and offered his hand. "Now before I get accused of hanging out with the local homeless…"

She took it and pushed herself upright.

"Can I at least get a… vicinity of where you are?" Troy asked.

"Nope. You're just gonna have to learn to trust me," she replied, and offered a tight lipped, weak smile before she turned on her heel and started walking down the street.

"I never stopped. That's the damn problem…" Troy muttered to himself before turning to leave himself- that was, until he spotted Jane and her camera crew headed towards the station. He groaned and backpedalled, then all but bolted for the side door. There was no way he was going to let her catch him this time.

* * *

She should've accepted the ride.

Damn her pride and her misguided anger, because working her way to Tobias and Laura's place. The directions were all wrong. At least she knew she was in the right part of town an hour after she had left the police department. And she hadn't nearly done enough thinking as she had wanted along the way.

And then there had been the sudden feeling she had been followed for the last few minutes. She had kept turning around every so often to scan the area, but got absolutely nothing. She had been around Tobias too much. She wanted to snort- and she was about to make it even worse if she was going to stay with them for a while.

She had been ready to go pickpocket a wallet for cab fare when she spotted a familiar intersection. She started on her way over to it when she caught sight of something that did, in fact, back up the odd feeling.

Two golden yellow sportscars, blocking the side street, and then off to the left, two more were blocking the highway. She stopped in her tracks. Great. Out of sheer instinct she grabbed for her gun in the back of her waistband, then remembered that it wasn't there because she had been playing by the rules for the first time in ages. She turned to bolt back down the other sideroad only to stop short when she spotted a Ronin motorcycle speeding over. She was as cornered as possible, and the fact that she was on foot made it worse.

She squinted at the rider and when she recognized the rider, she tried not to groan. She expected it would've been Shogo with all the showmanship, but it was Kenj, one of Shogo's lieutenants who had it out for her and Quinn. She expected him to run her down at this rate, but he brought the bike to a stop a few feet from her and made a show of skidding to a stop.

"It's about time you showed your face around here…" Shogo mused and dismounted the bike. "I didn't take you for the run and hide type."

"Well, what can I say, near death experiences do that."

Kenji smirked. "Yes, we'll see about remedying our little mishap now."

She couldn't help looking puzzled at that one. "Wait, wh-" she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to follow it and found that she had been flanked when he had distracted her.

Flanked by ninjas at that. She almost laughed at the absurdity until they each drew a sword and that got to her. "Now just hold on a goddamn fuckin' minute, because I've already had my 'stabbed by a ninja sword' quota filled for the rest of my life, tha-"

There was a sharp, blunt pain at the back of her head and the last thought that came to her before the ground came rushing up to meet her was revisiting that 'remedying their little mishap' the next time she got a chance. If she got a chance.


	4. Chapter 4

Troy stared at the clock. 11am- _Andrea_ ’s start time was three hours ago. He wasn’t sure whether to be worried or conned. He wanted to believe that something was terribly wrong, that she hadn’t lied to his face. She wouldn’t lie. The bigger part of him had corrected that Hell yes, she would lie, she’s a criminal and probably miles away just to avoid more trouble.

Leave it to him to start wondering if he wasn’t wrong in trusting her and then having that blow up in his face. It was just plain typical.

Across town, Audrey felt herself get shoved onto something in a sitting position, then felt someone duct tape her hands together, locking her elbows around, and then taped them  to something. She had come to a matter of minutes ago, but they had put something over her head to keep her from seeing something. She kicked out to try and gain any ground, and felt that she only made slight contact with someone’s knee.

There was murmured talking for a while, and then she heard quiet yet calculated footsteps.

“It’s time you pay for your crimes…”

The bag over her head lifted and she had to squint pretty damn hard to adjust to the light. She looked up and was fairly surprised to see Shogo instead of that same leutienant, and then she realized he looked just as surprised to see her. She took that as a small blessing and tried to don a poker face. 

“You. Got. The Wrong. Girl?!” Shogo demanded and turned to Kenji.

That got her to gawk at them. “Wha- " And then she realized what he was getting at. Well, it was bound to happen someday. "Oh, you tried to grab my sister and no one knew the difference? We-he-hell, you dumb shit, then maybe you should’ve I don’t know, done the job yourself? I mean-“ she stopped short when Shogo drew his own blade and practically shoved it through Kenji’s chest without so much as a second thought. _“-holy shit.”_ There was no way she could try talking her way out of this one if she backtracked. She tried not to make a face when Shogo pulled the blade out of Kenji and the noise that followed was one she was hearing far too much lately. She doubted mocking him for a distraction wasn’t going to end well, either. But she couldn’t just sit there in silence. “So… you’re after my sister for something she’s done. Well, hate to break it to you but we’re not exactly on good terms at the moment. Last thing she did was stab me in a borderline jealous rage so I don’t think I’m a good bargaining ch-“ there was his blade at her throat a moment later, “Okay.”

“We’ll see what my father will say if we have you. You’re still in command-“

She swallowed hard and looked from the blade, back to him. “Uh, no, that’s kind of my point. I was pretty much kicked out-“

Shogo brought the blade even closer to her neck. "“You can still take over later after we kill your sister. The Saints respect you enough."

“If you killed her, think her current second in command- you know, Gat, would do that job for me, actually. I wouldn't lead. Or I’d just give him the job, sit back and watch. I’m not picky.”

Shogo scowled, then lowered the sword and turned around. “It's my father's choice, now.”

Audrey felt two Ronin flank her as Shogo left without another word. Well, there was her chance. She leaned back to address them and looked up. “Hey, any chance I can get water? Or a bathroom break?” she paused, “Reverse that order, preferably?” she started rocking in her chair and wanted to beam when the men merely glowered down at her before looking away. Too easy. After a moment her elbow bushed the side of one of their thighs and she felt what she hoped was a gun. If it wasn’t, well, she was in for a pretty awkward next few seconds. She rocked again, and when she leaned back, she got hold of the phone, leaned slightly forward and pulled it from his pocket. Success, and no potential weirdness. Even better. She leaned back again to cover slipping it in her own pocket, then arched her back for good measure.She made eye contact with each guard to sell her story.  “Seriously? You’re gonna be those kidnappers? Alright, well if I piss here, I’ll have you know I had sauerkraut with my hot dog a while ago, and also I just got out of the hospital so everything’s gonna smell like that, and that’s not exactly a combo of smells I’d-“ _that_ got her a cuff to the side of the head. _Go figure._

The door opened again and she inhaled sharply when Kazuo showed up. She straightened out. The prick was pretty much enemy number one but had that air where she felt like she was doing something desperately wrong by not having squared shoulders and a determined look. No wonder Shogo was so obsessed with trying to be a good son in his eyes.

The older man advanced on her, then studied her in complete silence. He turned to Shogo when the younger man joined them in the room and opened his mouth to say something.

The door opened a third time and a frantic-looking Ronin Audrey had yet to see muttered something to Kazuo.

The fact that Shogo looked terrified for a second before he switched to annoyed wasn’t lost on Audrey.

Kazuo growled, then grabbed Shogo’s neck and hissed something at him in Japanese.

“Father, how was I supposed to-“

He shook him again, then stormed off.

Audrey sighed, then flinched when the movement dug into the tape around her wrists the right way. At least that was a break.

After another few minutes of silence- from her guards included, she was starting to wonder what the big issue had been, and then Shogo came in and ordered her guards to do something, and they drew their guns and one left the room with Shogo. The remaining guard just went by the doorframe.

A matter of seconds later and then there was shouting, then and gunfire. A _lot_ of gunfire.

The guard opened the door and a handful of Ronin ran past.

Audrey strained her neck to see what was going on, and then froze when she saw something purple go flying past the door, too.

The Saints were attacking. _Great._

Her guard was stupid enough to step through the threshold into the hall and got killed by a passing bullet for his trouble.

She was alone, she realized, and immediately went to work trying to get the tape on her arms loose. She stopped short when three more Ronin ran into the room for cover. She straightened out and tried to lean back from the action, only to have a shotgun shell miss her head by about a foot.

She was going to kill whichever Saint was waving a shotgun around that close to targets. Another shot missed her by half a foot and she shrieked, then tried to pivot to move the chair, but overshot the angle, sending her in a one-eighty- and coincidentally, face to face with Johnny, who had just popped up by the window to shoot the people in the room.

It was the first time she had seen the man look surprised when he spotted her. “Princess?! Holy shit!”

“Johnny?! The fuck?! Why are you guys hitting a den?!” She was screwed. So the Saints were attacking now, and if Johnny was here, Quinn wasn’t far. This was going to end horribly. She watched him raise his gun and half expected him to shoot her, but he picked off every single Ronin in the room instead. He moved to jump inside, but saw something behind her and frowned. “Shit…” he jumped back.  She didn’t want to turn around to see what was going on if it had spooked Johnny, but the answer came in the form of yet another shotgun blast that hit the wall a few feet behind her, but still came by her face so it made her ears ring. She didn’t want to risk another one getting closer. Now she had to worry about getting shot in the crossfire and seeing if Johnny was okay.

There was a distant, familiar, “Fuck you!” from outside followed by rapid fire, and at least that answered the big question. Her sister was outside. She just had to avoid that general direction at all costs. She might have not been fond of her sister then, but Johnny was still a decent friend in her book. Hell, he hadn’t been in the room when she got stabbed, nor did he run into her during her escape, so he must’ve been utterly lost when he saw her. She scooted back to get a better look out the window, and sure enough Johnny was there, scrambling for his car. He was probably going to leave to call in the cavalry, so she had no idea what she was in for. She watched him speed down the road, then had to duck when new gunfire started up. When she realized her presence must’ve been forgotten for the moment, she relaxed. That was, until spinning red and blue lights flashing off of one wall. Cops were here. The wheels started moving in her head. She was screwed all over again because this had gone from a general gang hideout to the setting for a turf war, which meant the cops were just going to start opening fire after a minute and she was in front of a window and a thin wall separated her from two others. And if the cops brought the firepower they had during her own last few missions things were going to end pretty damn quickly and violently soon.

“Fuck!” she maneuvered to get the phone from her pocket after a moment, suddenly grateful its owner had been behind a few generations with technology and flipped it open. She breathed sharply for a minute, trying to remember the little jingle the right number would make- if the little shit hadn’t changed his number after the big reveal. She got it right and waited.

“Chief Brads-“

She let out what must've sounded like a short maniacal laugh in victory before she realized now was hardly the time for laughing. She snapped out of it. “The PIZZA is in the OVEN, TROY! PIZZA’S IN THE _FUCKING OVEN AND I SWEAR TO GOD I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT_!” she yelled into the phone. 

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Y- wait, oven?  _Shit_.”

She barely heard it, but she could’ve sworn she heard the other line hang up over the racket that had started to calm down.  She groaned and tossed the phone down and braced herself, ready to toss herself to the floor if anything else went wrong. She hoped that damn phrase did the trick to diffuse him undoubtedly being pissed at her. It had been the only thing she could think of those years ago when she had been the unlucky person to drive Tanya’s damn limo, got the call that the fucking idiot hadn’t heard about the change in plan to bring her down and planned to have his people destroy the limo. It had been a completely ridiculous thing to say, but what else was there without tipping off Tanya? It had taken Troy a good minute and one destroyed Saints car to figure it out, and she hoped the odds were better this time around. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and could’ve sworn she saw a red laser to boot. She realized what that meant. “Fucking _fuck_!”  She tried to jump with the chair, and after a few moments her plan worked. The chair leg broke and she went down like a ton of bricks just as bullets started flying. She flailed to try and get free. After another few tries she had gotten her legs and one arm free, so she went to work freeing the other arm when she heard yelling. After a short few seconds it was utterly silent outside, and then voices started up again. “Please have called in… please have called it in… please be smarter than I’ve always given you credit for.”

There was a bang from a couple of rooms over, and her heart stopped all over again. When the door closest to her opened, she turned to see three men in SPD gear training rifles on her. She exhaled sharply. “The Hell took you so long?”

The pair didn’t respond. They each took one of her arms and dragged her out of the house.

* * *

 

A few hours later, she was in the local PD’s holding cell. She hadn’t exactly expected them to cut her loose when she was clearly somehow involved with the Ronins, but she wasn’t really expecting a lone holding cell. She expected to be carted right back into general population since they had processed her and checked her record. Hell, she even wondered if she was going to get carted to Death Row.

People were either really, really stupid, or Troy had pulled way too many strings and there was a good chance both of them were going to get grief for it. She was starting to call bullshit on the fact that she didn’t get a phone call when a gruff looking cop she was pretty sure she had drop kicked during a botched robbery escape attempt two months ago approached the cell.

“You’re out, _Princess_. Someone paid up for you.”

She blinked at him. “Wait, what?”

“Someone made bail for you. You’re free to go.”

“I am? Like, no questions asked, just sign the thing, get my shit and leave?” she asked.

“Yep,” the officer drawled. 

“Holy shit…”

“You’re tellin’ me," he agreed. 

She wanted to nod. Yes, it was _totally_ the guy she drop kicked.

That was all the encouragement she needed. She all but bolted in the direction he had motioned.

* * *

 

She had walked a few blocks by the time a car pulled up next to her. Out of instinct from earlier she darted backward, then sighed when she recognized Troy’s car. Sure enough, the man rolled down the car window and ducked to look at her with a mix of emotion ranging from concern to uncertainty to annoyance. Leave it to the king of facial expressions to make that one.

He reached over and opened the co-passenger door. “Come on…”

She hesitated, then got in.

He started driving, but didn’t say anything, and neither were exactly sure if the silence was comfortable or not.

She exhaled sharply and let out a defeated groan before letting her head drop to his shoulder. “I take Andrea’s fired for not showing up on the first day?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Fuck.”

There was a few seconds of silence again, and he sighed. “You okay?”

She looked at him. “Don’t ask me that when I know you thought I ran until I called you…” she mused before dropping her head back to his shoulder.

“I’m trying to make up for that, here.”

“Then shut up and drive. And give me your bed for nine hours when we get back to your place.”

“No running off to your friend’s?”

“Not exactly gonna walk there after today- let alone go to that area," she answered. 

Troy snorted. “Fair enough.”

They were quiet for a while, and then she lifted her head to look at him again. “So how’d the Anonymous thing work out?” she asked.

“The what?”

She blinked a few times. “Anonymous, John Smith? The name that was given with bail money? I’m… assuming it was you who bailed me out. I-“

He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. That would’ve been the start of the snowball that ended my career if I did. They’re grasping at straws lately and they’re gonna find something eventually that’ll get me out of this spot. I’d just rather not have it happen so soon and have gift-wrapped it for them, either.”

She considered the statement, then leaned back “So… there’s some other person who just… didn’t want me to know? Just… called himself John Smith, paid up and left?”

He practically slammed on the brakes. “Hold on. They actually let a John Smith bail you out? I thought you were just naming them?”

“Hey, I said that too.”

Troy groaned. “If I could fire the entire police force I would.”

She nodded, then sighed. “So who the Hell did it? Are there cameras in the station?”

“The one over there’s been broken for a while and no one’s fixing it. Could it be the friend you’re staying with?”

“We have an agreement that we wouldn’t bail each other out. We’d just break each other out- less of a chance of getting caught that way. He wouldn’t know I’m in here, anyway. That’s why I thought it was you,” she answered. “Should I be worried? What if they got me out just to mess with me? Or get me out of jail to use me against my sister?”

“You’d know more about that than me. I don’t know who your enemies or allies would be anymore…” He shrugged. He glanced at her, then frowned when she went from looking contemplative to downright frowning at him. “What?”

She leaned back. “No, I just realized you’re not all… ironed and stiff and shit.”

“'Ironed and stiff'?”

“This!” she reached over and tugged and unbuttoned dress shirt. “This! You just look like… _you_. Hell, even your hair’s getting floppy and it’s not that… cop… boxy haircut thing.”

“It’s been a long day with attempting to run operations and, ya know, trusting a friend I’m still not sure about trusting. And _I_  look like _me_?”

She smiled weakly and nodded. “Yeah. _Old_ you. _My_ you.  not… … some off-the-hanger, Let’s Pretend cop suit. You look less pedophile-y when you're less fancy..." she explained. 

“It's my uniform. And the stache isn’t that bad.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about the stache, you made that connection,” she put her hands up.  “And it is bad. Really bad. And there’s the extra thirty pounds too, probably donut-induced.”

“Fuck you!”  he countered, but to her relief, he laughed as he did it this time around.  

She laughed with him, but the easiness didn’t last long because there was a bigger issue she had managed to force out of her mind and he needed to know. “Johnny knows  I’m still around.”

“What?”

“He was at the Ronin den you guys busted. I think the Saints and your boys caught wind of the same place and happened to show up at the same time. He almost took out the entire room I was in until he saw me. Killed everyone but me.”

“So he’s… okay with the development? Okay with you?” Troy asked. He cast a cautious glance in each of his mirrors.

She shrugged. “As far as I know. He was pretty surprised. I don’t think he’s the following sort. If he wasn’t happy-“

“You’d be dead,” Troy supplied, and she nodded. “So… what’s your plan?”

“What do you mean what’s the plan?” she asked. 

“You’ve done nothing but relocate lately. Where are you headed now?”

“I’m not headed anywhere location-wise, anyway.”

“Mm-hm… which means?”

When he looked at her again, she realized how ridiculous informing him was going to be. He would probably barricade her in his room and then block the windows if he followed through with giving her the bed for a while. But it didn’t matter because damn it, she wasn’t going to sit around and lay low like he wanted because with her luck it would be nothing but that day repeated on occasion. She wasn’t about that. But she wasn’t about dragging him into any more trouble, either. She at least gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited for a stop light to turn red before she continued. “I’m gonna go see Quinn.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

"Dree, no. This is… do you really want to do this?"

Audrey had to give Troy credit. He had let her get a good night's sleep before he had hounded her about her latest plan the next morning. But the fact that he was back in talking-to-a-child mode was wearing thin and it had barely been ten minutes into the conversation.  "What else is there? Avoiding her was bound to go wrong and now maybe Johnny told her so I'm screwed anyway. You know just as well as I do that every other plan I've had to just… exist normally has gone horribly, horribly wrong, what else can I do?"

Troy shook his head. "Let her come to you. I'm not saying you know this place, but it's more unfamiliar to her if she catches wind of the address and comes here. It's your advantage if things get ugly and you need to start running around and dodging shit." 

"What, so you can lose your house and possibly life over shit you washed your hands of? No. I'm not doing that to you when you're already risking too much. Quinn's the one who burns bridges and doesn't care who gets hurt in crossfires. I do. Even if I've thought they've deserved it every time."

He wasn't quite sure if he was in the 'deserved it' category, and she was giving him a look that he couldn't even read to figure it out. He re-analyzed what she had said, then sighed dismissively.  "I didn't wash my hands of it. I can't wash my hands of it."

"You can try," Audrey pointed out.

"I'm the fuckin' uneducated Irish kid who got raised on the wrong side of the tracks and then moved to a city that wasn't much better than the town. I'm not cut out for being on the right side of the law."

She was about to protest that she was the same, but she realized that more or less proved his point- the first part, anyway. She could forsee the next step he was about to take and cut him off at the pass. "You're still better than Monroe."

"I might as well be. I haven't worked with you guys directly but you've brought up killing people conversationally and I've just sat here and laughed with you. What kind of Police Chief does that?"

"Because you weren't able to protest when it happened and it's too late to regret that shit now. Come on, this isn't like you. My choice shouldn't bring you down. I won't let it. I won't lose you." 

"You're under my damn roof. I've been looking out for you- you're the only one who I haven't regretted keeping alive so far. I just don't want to see this backfire for either of us, Kid." 

She flinched. There it was. The other old nickname that he used to break out when he was in 'teachable moment' mode. She knew now it was actually cop mode when he was trying to steer her out of Saints life, but that was beside the point now. She glanced down at the floor. "I'll come back soon and I'll check in every so often. It'll be fine."

Troy advanced on her. "I've been checking up on Saints mission when I've been gone… their body count's tripled since I was in there just in the last three weeks. It's all Quinn, I know it. She's losing it, Dree. How the Hell do you think she'll take you coming back?" 

"You're gonna jinx me if you keep it up..." she pointed out.

Troy opened his mouth to protest, then sighed and stopped.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek and hoped it was enough to at least quiet him down. "I'll be back before you know it. I'll be careful. You'll still have your weird… informant, witness friend by the end of it. Promise." She headed for the front door and opened it, only to yelp and slam it shut.

Troy walked over. "What-"

Audrey glanced at the door and shook her head. "Johnny. He uh, found me. Us."

He caught on. "Are you-"

The door burst open right off the hinges, and Troy noticed the intruder's sunglasses first, then realized yes, he was very much screwed. Audrey had the decency to step in front of him, but he wasn't sure if that made things worse or not.

Johnny was a little too into his show to notice him at first, still looking at her instead of him. He didn't even seem to have noticed the cop. "So riddle me this, Princess. The last time I hear any shit about you, the Boss stabbed you in the gut with a sword pretty damn hard, so by rights you're dead, and then you come by, and you're suddenly alive, chillin' with the Ronin, even if you're tied up and shit. Which isn't exactly a great place to be when you've been exiled, you know? And now you get in some random car and head to suburbia so you're probably hookin' again on top of that-"

Troy blanched. On the list of things he didn't need to know, that was pretty high up there.

Johnny was about to continue when he finally got a better look at Troy and in one quick motion had a gun pointed at the other man's head.

"NO!" Audrey shoved Troy out of the way again and arched so the gun's barrel was against her chest instead. She hoped Johnny still gave a shit and wasn't Quinn's lapdog entirely just yet. They had been like siblings since day one of knowing each other, so she had every single intention of exploiting that. "Johnny, listen to me! It's not... what it looks like. You're all wrong. This was all me. Not him!"

"Looks exactly like what I think it is, Princess…" Johnny pointed out.

"Then don't you think we would've screwed over one of OUR strongholds by now if it was?!" she countered. 

"… Still not finding a reason  _not_  to shoot this guy in the face…" Johnny pointed out.

"How about 'we were all Saints at one point and we need to stick together'? He's the only reason you didn't get the fuckin' death penalty or get shanked in jail?" she suggested.

"He backstabbed us, had you and Quinn killed and your sister already broke that rule with you as far as stickin' together."

"It wasn't him that set up the explosion-"

Now that got his attention. " _What_?"

Right. She was the only one who had come across those tapes while snooping. She sighed and tried to compile all the info she needed to convince him not to waste Troy and tried to figure out how to divvy it out to buy time. "Was him being a cop the first domino? Hell yes. You wanna get angry at someone over it, you get angry at Julius. He started everything. Troy didn't know. More importantly, I haven't told Troy shit about any of us or our places."

"She hasn't. I woulda been stupid to expect it," Troy nodded.

"I'm not talking to you, Asshole," Johnny pointed out. "Probably fuckin' lying to me anyway, since that's what you do." 

Troy put his hands up dismissively.

Audrey looked between them and realized they hadn't stopped glaring at each other once the whole time. "Stop it, both of you. Johnny, put the gun down. You're gonna try solving a problem with something other than 'Shoot first, don't bother with questions'." When the man made no move to obey, she sighed. "The fact that Troy and I aren't dead is a pretty good idea that you wanna hear me out. If you want that to happen, I'd feel a lot better if you put the gun down."

"There's that much of a story?" Johnny demanded.

"No, it's a pretty damn short one all things considered but I think I've had enough  _FUCKIN' WEAPONS_  waved in my  _FUCKIN' FACE_  in the last  _FEW FUCKIN' DAYS_! that I'm not gonna be  _FUCKIN' HAPPY_  if I have to deal with it from _YOU_!" she finished and inhaled sharply.

Johnny snorted, then shrugged and set his gun down on the counter. "Fine…"

She continued and tried to get her breathing back in check in the process. "I came to him because when Quinn stabbed me I was pretty sure I was gonna fuckin' die and my best shot to live was getting to someone who stabbed us in the back but was still 'a good person' or what-the-fuck-ever who could bring me to a hospital or some shit. It worked, then I figured I might as well stick around just in case the Saints tried to follow up,  _which by the way I'm still not exactly convinced you're not here for that-_  and every single plan that involved going back to you or not has gone to shit- including the whole taken by the Ronin thing, which you saw. Now here we are."

"I ain't here to finish the Boss' job, Princess. This was supposed to be a solo rescue mission from whatever creep had found you. Imagine my surprise when it's a fucking backstabbing creep that I know!"

"Solo? So she's got no idea I'm still around?" she cut him off.

"Not that I know of. I haven't told her shit because she's ready to go rip Maero's head off of his body for doing _that_ to Carlos. Shit, you know about Carlos, right?"

"Yeah. And that's why I want in. Not _back_  in, just in. Maybe that'll plead my case," Audrey replied. 

"You sure our favorite cop who's holding your leash is okay with that?" Johnny countered. 

"Fuck you," Troy and Audrey snapped.

Johnny arched an eyebrow at them when even they looked pained at how in unison it was, tone and all. "Exhibit A…"

"Yeah, well, pointing that shit out isn't gonna help us bring down Maero," she pointed out. 

Johnny shrugged, then looked at Troy. "You're awful silent for a cop hearin' about an incoming gang war."

"The city's fucked up and I have the worst police force under me. You'd be doing me a favor…" Troy muttered.

"Oh good, we have another Monroe on our hands. Hire us to kill someone and I'll kill you," the Saint threatened. 

"Johnny!" Audrey hissed and glanced at the other man when he froze briefly.

Troy snapped out of it and scoffed. "I'd probably already be dead if I was anything like the prick then, since I have four gangs to worry about and you guys were the main ones stupid enough to carry out Monroe's full plan."

Johnny went to snap right back, then sighed and backed off. "Fine, Princess wants us to use our words, I'll use my words..." He looked around. "Never figured you for the white picket fence type,  _Chief._  Same to you, Princess. now look at you two being all domestic and shit."

"Do you have a plan or not?" Audrey cut him off.

"We're getting one together. We gotta get him back for Carlos first. You sure you wanna risk your neck, or is this new fucked up kinda partnership with Brutus over here good enough for you?"

"I'll have you watching my back, right?" she countered.

"I'll think about it. Boss gets the final word if you're gonna go Brotherhood hunting, though. You're more than welcome to have a reunion though. I'll look out for you if you wanna do it." 

"Love you too, Johnny. I think I'm gonna take you up on that now." 

Johnny smirked, then shrugged. "Alright, hurry up. You're driving. Chief, I'll have your girlfriend back by ten."

"Prick..." Troy muttered.

Johnny grinned and winked at him before he tossed an arm around Audrey's shoulders and yanked her towards him to steer her towards the door, despite her swatting at him to make him stop. "In the meantime, you and I have some catching up to do."

* * *

Johnny glanced over at Audrey. They had been driving for a few minutes now. He had been talking at her for the most part, about what had happened with the Ronin and the Brotherhood since she had left, and naming a few of the new recruits. She still looked petrified, but he knew it was for good reason so he didn't call her on it. "So… you and the Chief, huh?"

"No."

"Really? Cause you two looked pretty damn cozy. I mean back in the day we all expected to come back from a run to see him bending you over a-"

" _Gat…_ "

"Never expected you to turn the tables on us despite anything happening."

" _Johnny._ "

"What's the attraction for a guy who stabbed us in the back?"

"He- it was Dex and Julius who sold us out, right? Dex knew about Troy and didn't tell us because he wanted out. Julius planted the bomb, Troy didn't know. He was worried about us. There are tapes of the calls. He told Julius that the explosion isn't what he wanted. You want to kill people for betraying us that bad, you go after them."

Johnny considered the development. "I still get to kill people so it sounds like a reasonable deal," Johnny shrugged.

There was more silence to follow. When they made it to the loft, she beamed when Pierce was the first one to see them.

"Yo Princess! You're alive!" he called and hurried over.

"Piercey!" she took a flying leap into his arms, and he was more than happy to grab her.

"Girl, where the Hell have you been? I've heard like twenty different stories and none of them end that well for you…" he muttered.

"I'll tell you later," she countered in his ear.

Pierce set her down.

"Right now, I have a homicidal maniac of a sister to see and the last time we spoke it didn't end well, so we'll see what happens."

* * *

Not much happened- or not much that Audrey expected, anyway.

Quinn had just done a double take when she walked into the room and continued telling the random Saints scattered around what the plan for whatever mission she dreampt up next was. She did keep looking at her throughout the speech. So they were headed to the arena to go meet Maero and fuck up his world. The how was still up for debate and Quinn apparently didn't want to tell anyone quite yet, either. Audrey was starting to wonder why there hadn't been some dramatics about her showing up when Quinn pointed her and Pierce's way.

"Sis, light of my life, you and Pierce drive around and try and bait the Brotherhood to follow you for a while. You're good at that. The rest of you, get the fuck out, do your thing." She hopped down from the landing and walked over to them.

Audrey tried not to look as panicked as she felt.

"Welcome back, Girlie! Hey, no hard feelings about the whole… y'know…" Quinn made a stabbing motion and laughed. "I mean, I had to try and dig my heels in with leadership somewhere, figured you could take it."

"I could… ' _take it_.' right…" Audrey nodded slowly.

Pierce looked between them. "I'm ah, I don't think-"

"Stay," the sisters insisted.

Pierce nodded quickly. "You got it."

Quinn crossed her arms over her chest. "Where the Hell have you been, anyway?"

Audrey blanched. So Johnny hadn't run and told her when she was catching up with Pierce. Or she was playing dumb pretty damn well. "Places," she countered.

Quinn snorted. "Alright then. You good running with us again? Figured sticking you with the other job would work well."

"So long as I don't get run through again," Audrey replied.

Pierce let out a muffled, disbelieving sound.

"Well, now that these guys know what I'm about, there's not much chance of that. No hard feelings, right? What's in the past is in the past, we're siblings again?"

"For Carlos' sake, just for now?  _Sure_ …" Audrey replied dryly.

"Good!" Quinn all but launched herself into Audrey's arms to hug her, and Audrey stumbled but returned it. She jogged off and left Audrey and Pierce alone.

Pierce turned to her. "She what?!"

"Exactly…" Audrey sighed. "Come on. We have damage control to do. Did you get rid of my truck when I was away?"

Pierce arched an eyebrow. "Get rid of Lola and risk your wrath? Girl,  _please_. I like living too much to do that," he motioned at her to follow him.

When they reached the garage she beamed and ran to the parked Bulldog. She stroked the flame the flame decal. "Hello, Beautiful! I'm so sorry, I'll never leave you again!"

"Hey, you want to be alone with Lola for a while?"

She grinned. "Actually…" when Pierce made a face that teetered between disturbed and confused, she laughed. "Come on. Let's go distract some people."

"You sure you're up for this after… whatever the Hell that drama was?"

"Honey, this was my main job back in the day. I'm right at home."

"Yeah? Who am I replacing as the guns?"

"The one she's been fuckin' when she's been gone."

She turned to the newcomer in the garage. "Fuck you, Johnny!"

"I'd say 'fuck you' back but now Troy's got that-"

She took off her boot and threw it at him. He grinned and dodged it.

Pierce frowned. "Wait, Troy like that Saint who-"

"Who I am in  _no way fucking_. And no," she replied. Pierce was one of the few who she honestly cared about, but she didn't trust him with that secret just yet. "And if you wanna talk that shit, Gat, are you and Quinn fucking yet?"

"Princess, I'm a one woman kinda guy. I don't do that shit," Johnny countered. He picked up her boot and tossed it back. "See you at the arena in thirty."

"Yeah."

* * *

 

Audrey let out a shriek that almost matched Pierce's in pitch when she swerved the truck to avoid the third RPG headed their way. They had been halfway to the area when two bullets had shattered one of Lola's mirrors and other gunfire followed. A matter of moments after the resulting car chase had begun, the Brotherhood goons trailing them had broken out the heavy artillery."Since when the fuck did the Brotherhood have RPGs?!" 

"Since like, three weeks ago, have you really been out that long?"

"Yes I- shit, hold onto something!"

"But I'm shooting!"

"Yeah, you're gonna be blasted through the windshield first if you don't." She floored the truck into a spin the moment Pierce held onto something, then checked in the mirror. They had lost the Brotherhood for the moment. She turned back and spotted a parking garage and floored the gas again and went into it. "Come on, Baby, just get us behind that wall before they show up…"

They made it around the corner and Audrey scrambled to park, bail out of the car and then run and open the trunk in quick succession. She tossed Pierce a couple of pistols and got a sniper rifle for herself. "Let's go!"

They ran back down the ramp just in time for the Brotherhood trucks to get to them.

"They're uh, they're out of RPGs by now, right?" Audrey asked.

"Hope so?" Pierce squeaked after a bit, having just remembered that issue as well.

"Cover me then…" she brought up the sniper rifle and aimed for the driver. Her side hurt as the scar stretched when she forced herself to stay steady and she wanted to groan. Of course now that would start up now. She pulled the trigger, and strained to readjust when all she saw was the windshield get coated in blood. That truck swerved into another one. Two left. "Pierce?!"

" I'm workin' on it!" he fired off a few more shots and brought down the two left.

She checked if the coast was clear a final time. "Good, come on, we're a couple of blocks away, we can run from here."

"What, and bring our guns through security?"

"We're going in the side door, idiot. We're gonna handle security. And we won't bring mine but we'll bring yours…" she explained and tossed the sniper rifle in the trunk before slamming it shut and locking up. Pierce tossed her his pistol and they made their way down the street.

Getting in ended up being easier than expected- almost laughably so. She wasn't exactly sure why a truck derby had so much security, but they could deal with it. There were general security guards posted at the side door. They made it in when one had stepped out for a smoke break and Audrey merely punched him out and dragged him away before stealing his jacket. They waited for the other to check on his partner and Pierce got that one and donned his gear. They slipped inside.

"So… what exactly's the plan? Just… distract people? Is my sister gonna be in a rival truck or something and crush him?"

"No idea!" Pierce called over the roar of the engines that had just started up. "All I know is that it's 'Revenge-tastic' or whatever she called it."

"Oh, great…" she sighed. "That could mean anything. Hell, that could mean she's after me and the reunion was as bullshit as it felt…" she muttered.

"Wouldn't…  _you_  doing something to  _her_ be revenge, not the other way around?" Pierce countered.

"In her book…?" she shrugged, and Pierce raised his eyebrows in agreement. She looked around, then grabbed Pierce's sleeve and yanked him closer so they could have as much of a quiet conversation as possible. "So… this is a one person show, then? The Hell are we doing here?!"

"Apparently it's gonna be big and no one's gonna be happy…" he replied.

"No one as in… Brotherhood?" she asked.

"Think so…" Pierce nodded.

She looked around at all of the people in red clothing around them. "Yeah, we're the expendable help that's set up on low ground that's easy to get to if things work out like she wants them too. Fuck. Come on…" she yanked him back towards the

"Expenda-what?!" Pierce demanded.

"You heard me…" She shoved Pierce further towards the bleachers and ducked. She saw her sister show up by the front of the arena, arms crossed, hip tilted, smirk on her face as a red monster truck was in mid-jump. "The fuck are you up to, Quinn?" The monster truck slammed into the last two cars in the lineup, then rolled to a stop. She growled and set up a clear shot at what she assumed was going to be her sister's head when it was Maero who stepped out of the truck and approached Quinn. That changed things, but at least it was only Plan B that it turned the situation into.  "Give us a reason… come on, give us a reason…"

Quinn said something to him, and Maero's jaw dropped. He turned back to the last two cars, that were now burning. He turned back again and she could tell from her spot he was petrified.

It didn't take long for Audrey to put the pieces together. "Someone was in one of those cars…"

"Yeah…" Pierce agreed and sounded just as sick as she did.

Audrey frowned. She wasn't sure what to think. She wanted revenge, but this was- this was fucked up, even for her sister.

Maero advanced on Quinn, and despite her being ready and arching to avoid him, he made it close enough to backhand her and send her flying. Audrey swore and charged forward, firing off a couple of shots at Maero's head. The fact that pistols weren't her first choice showed because they missed him easily and he looked their way and growled. She backed up and turned to check for an escape route, only to find that she had been right before- a good dozen Brotherhood members had spotted them first and were headed her and Pierce's way. "Fuck! There's no way we're prepped for this, go go go!"

"We gettin' Lola?!" Pierce called, already at the door. He yanked it open.

"We are NOT risking my baby after that, no!" she answered.

They made it out and Audrey spotted some poor bastard getting into a sports car and charged. "Sorry, pal…" she yanked him out of the car and jumped in and shoved the other door open for Pierce. He got in and floored the gas again.

A few moments of dead silence where the only thing they heard was the car speeding, they realized they were alone for the time being. She kept driving for a few minutes to make sure of that, then finally sighed. "Which crib d'you wanna get dropped at?"

"Dropped at? Where the Hell are you gonna go that ain't with us?!" Pierce demanded.

"Places," she replied again.

Pierce made a face. "Hey, I'm lookin' out for you. Don't give me that shit that you didn't want to say. You can tell Queenie that and get away with it, but not me." 

"I know. Just… right now my life's a bit of a shitstorm and I'm... trying to involve as few people as possible."

"… Are you running around solo or do you have friends? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you're gonna need friends after this thing goes public," Pierce pointed out. 

"I have friends, yes."

"Friends with firepower?"

"Yes."

"Friends who ain't gonna throw you out when they find out you took part in all this?"

"Yes."

"Are you just saying yes to shut me up?"

"Yes."

"Ya know, fine. Get me to the beach house. Least I could have some nice, sunny R and R before things go wrong again."

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

When Audrey got back to Troy's place later that night, it wasn't until the car was parked and she could see Troy hovering over some poor locksmith that she realized driving the car to the front of his yard was probably a bad idea.

When he turned at the sound of the car door and his face dropped, it was all but confirmed. She smiled apologetically, then stopped short when he walked over.

He looked hesitant and sick. He bit his lip, searching for words, then finally found them. He looked down. "Just promise me no one's dead."

"Errrr…"

"No one  _innocent_  is dead…?" He tried.

"Ehhhh… poss…ibly not? I mean the ones I got were pretty damn evil if they're-"

"Oh,  _Christ_. Just… is anyone dead over the car, at least? You didn't steal it from a living, innocent person?"

She perked up. "Oh, then no. Well, I mean the dude probably did some shady shit to afford that thing, but yeah, not dead, just… potentially dazed with a black eye."

" _Goddamn it_ , Dree. Just- just get in the damn house before I regret anything else or learn more things about what happened when you were gone."

She nodded eagerly, then headed for the door. She turned to address him and walked backwards. "Deal. I'm fine, by the way, since you were curious earlier but now don't seem to give a shit…" she turned back around and spared a glance and a wink at the locksmith as she went.

Troy groaned again, then looked up. "Bet you're real funny, don't ya? I am going to Hell." He tossed his hands up. "I'm going to Hell!" he headed back inside, already making mental notes of how much paperwork was bound to be waiting for him the next day. The fact that she was suddenly so cavalier about killing people, Brotherhood or not, made everything progressively worse. At this rate he was going to hand off half of it to her. He couldn't even bring himself to care that doing that would only end in further disaster.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Audrey padded down the hallway when she finally heard Troy walking around. She found him in the kitchen and hopped onto the nearest chair. She paused at that. Johnny had a point. This was getting horribly domestic. It worried her that she wasn't exactly bothered by that. She shoved that train of thought to the back of her mind. "Any new word about anything I should know about?"

He turned to her an arched an eyebrow when she practically bounced in place and smiled at him. "You're in a good mood. That's terrifying considering yesterday's events…"

She beamed. "You have no idea…"

He frowned at her, then set his jaw when the wheels in his head started going. He knew the smile and that excited jitter. He had questioned it six years ago and had gotten the low-down on her latest hookup with one of the latest Saints at the time. And he knew he had called it a night and let her handle seeing off the locksmith and left her alone for a while. He kind of wished she had been so excited about the murder since the real reason was bording on the TMI front and she hadn't even said anything yet. "You fucked Harry…" he realized and sighed.

"His name was Larry, actually. Or Barry. Shit…" she racked her brain for the answer.

He scoffed.

"What, Mister Condescending?" she walked over and poked him in the rib.

"You can't be that happy if you can't remember the guy's name…"

"We did it in the car and it was mindblowing, thanks much. It was a little distracting contorting that much."

He snorted again, then frowned all over again and leaned his head back. "Shit, the car. And now there's a reason why you shouldn't give it back on top of just having a stolen sports car casually parked outside my place."

"It was that poor sod's car or your couch. Figured you'd be mentally better with the car. And calm down, I unscrewed the plates and put them under the coach. No one's gonna check for a stolen car at the Police Chief's place and then if they do they'll see the car first and they'll have to cross check since there's no plate number to go on." She nodded as if perfectly happy with her explanation, then put her feet up on the counter.

Troy snorted.

The pair of them jumped, however, when there was a gunshot and they heard the front door burst open.

Troy groaned. "Come on, Gat! I just got the damn thing fi-" he stopped short and heard Audrey's legs slip right off the counter when their visitor who most certainly wasn't Johnny stepped into view from behind the archway.

Julius offered a smile as he straightened out and observed them, "Well, that's the first time I've been right in a while."

Audrey didn't miss a beat. She all but launched herself over to the cabinet behind her- the one Troy had put his gun in the previous night and pointed it at Julius.

Troy made a mental note to grill her on how she knew about it later- he had more important things to worry about now, like the fact Julius was here and all of the 'why's' that came with it.

Julius took a few careful steps towards them. "Hey, Princess. It's been a long time. Mind putting that down?" he nodded at the gun.

"It's been a long time no thanks to you, you fucking prick…" she took a couple of steps forward and Troy caught her around the middle to stop her.  "Let me go!"

"You heard the lady, Troy. We're all at odds with the Saints now, we can talk this out."

"Talk this out? YOU HAD ME KILLED!" Audrey pointed out.

"And he betray you…" Julius pointed out and nodded to Troy.

"Yeah, well, he's making amends. Your amends would involve putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger or letting me shoot you now, so he's already better than you there. Troy, let me go." She leaned down to make herself dead weight and it was enough for him to do as asked this time around. She couldn't stop shaking though, and she was hoping it was more anger than apprehension.

The older man had the nerve to chuckle at that. "You know, when I heard the news that Queenie stabbed you and left you with little ground, well, who would you go to where they wouldn't immediately find you? But this- the chief of police? You're scraping the bottom of the barrel? Gotta say it's pretty smart- and dumb at the same time, considering who he is."

"What do you want, Julius?" Troy demanded.

"A talk with our girl about a business proposition, Chief. This doesn't concern you. Besides, the last time you and I talked you were a great deal more hospitable. What changed?"

"I don't have any deals for you heard her- the last interaction you indirectly had with my witness you blew her and her sister sky high. I think it does."

Julius laughed again and looked back at Audrey. "'Witness', huh? You so quick to betray your own blood-"

"Me betray my- you know what, fuck you…" Audrey took the safety off the gun. "You have a grand total of two minutes to talk unless I hear something I don't like…" she growled.

Julius sighed. "I didn't want to do it this way. Just… remember that. Both of you."

"Wha-" She jumped at the gunshot and out of instinct checked her own body, then glanced back at the gun that had seemingly come out of nowhere in his hand and realized it wasn't pointed at her, but Troy. She turned sharply to see that Julius had actually shot him in the side. "Troy!"

His response was a startled groan.

Audrey turned back to Julius just as the man got up. She fired off one shot and he dodged it before he made for the back door and escaped. "Shit!" she went to run after him, then stopped short and turned back to Troy.

He caught the hesitation. "Go! S' fine, 's a graze!"

She stayed put and ripped his sleeve to try and see how bad the damage was. "The Hell was his point?! He doesn't solve problems with gunfire!"

"Dree, go get the fuckin' bastard!"

"Bu-"

"I can charge him with at least ten crimes for the last five minutes. I don't know what the fuck he's getting at but he just shot me to do it. I'm not really fuckin' happy with him right now, so if he's playing games just to get away go catch his sorry ass!"

That finally got her moving and she charged out the door. She spotted Julius in the distance and fired off another shot that missed. She realized she didn't know how many bullets the thing had left, and made a decision that the next few shots had to count, so she launched herself over the last few obstacles and threw herself around the corner. It gained enough ground and she took another shot. It got him smack dab in the middle of the shoulder blade.

He stumbled, but recovered.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she hissed, then ran again. She fired off two more shots, but lost ground on him for her trouble since he had started zigzagging. She ran after him, but the moment she saw train tracks and heard a distant, loud horn, she had a feeling she knew what he was trying for. She lost sight of him and ran forward again, and she eventually made it near the train tracks- with him just beyond them and a train was just a matter of feet away. There was no way she was going to make it across in time.

He planned this, she realized. Maybe not shooting Troy, but the timing and potential escape. It had worked out in his favor far too much to have just been chance. "Fuck…" She stopped short to catch her breath. She knew it wasn't going to be the last she was going to hear from him, either. That was what infuriated her even more.

She turned back and headed back towards Troy's. There was another emergency in the making. She reached the house and practically jumped inside. "Troy!" the spot she had left him in was empty. After earlier, worry set in. "Troy?!"

"Bedroom!" came his response.

She exhaled sharply and walked over to the door. She knew he would see it as hovering, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

He came out of his room and merely blinked at her before continuing out.

Audrey looked him over quickly. He had shed his work shirt to take care of the wound that now had a fair bit of gauze over it. There wasn't much blood, so it did look better than she thought it would be, but he looked like shit all over again. She opened her mouth to say something, then found she wasn't exactly sure what to say so she closed it. She hesitated, then held out the gun to him. "I didn't get him. Wounded, but the bastard got away. Pretty sure he timed it all out."

"He always was a smart fuck…" Troy replied.

She paused again. "He said something about the last time he visited you, what the Hell was that about?"

"He… occasionally feeds us information on the Saints. He's come by every so often. He hasn't-"

She backed up. "I've been here a couple of weeks and you didn't think to tell me the bastard who almost put me in the ground shows up 'every so often'?"

"I thought you'd expect it if you heard the calls."

She lowered the hand holding the gun. "Right, and if he showed up like he just did? How did you think it would've gone?!" she scoffed. When she saw him eyeing the gun, then her and repeating the action a couple of time, she sighed. "Troy..."

"I didn't expect you to be around here the whole time. I would've chased him off if I knew…" he cut himself off when she shook her head. "Look, I'm not gonna argue if it was a bad idea or not. Now I know it was pretty damn bad idea."

She stared at him for a while, then held up the gun again.

He frowned. "You hold onto it. It's… not exactly on the books."

"You're… gonna let me keep this?"

"You've already broken all my rules even if you were helping, and you didn't decide to add to Julius' job and shoot me just now and we both know what I just said gave you plenty of good reason to. Not to mention I had to tell you to get Julius instead of sticking with me. We've been over this, Kid. You earned it. And then there's the possibility that the Saints will come after you and I'll go down as easily as I just did…" he shrugged, then flinched and favored his arm.

"I got Lola back and I held onto the sniper rifle I used when we went after the Brotherhood!" she blurted.

Troy snorted, then hissed in pain. "I thought as much… kinda surprised you didn't take Lola with you."

"I didn't want her to get shot up after I got her back and there was a possibility we were going to get trailed by the Brothehood..." she admitted.

Troy went to pinch the bridge of his nose, then stopped. "We've gone over this too many times in the last few days. No withholding information from now on after this, alright? I mean it this time. Me, too. I fucked up, I'll own it. Now it's my turn to ease up. If… that means trusting you with a couple of guns even if I know they're being used to kill people, so be it. I'd rather have you killing people causing trouble and who are killing people themselves then random people."

"I did only throw that one guy out of his car when it was parked," she shrugged.

He stared at her for a moment, then snorted. "Yeah. Yeah, you did…" he nodded, then glanced down at the bed- and his uniform jacket. "Ya know, the thing that got the bloodiest were the damn decorations on this damn thing. If that's not symbolism, I don't know what is."

"It's unintentional fallout from an asshole who's not one of us being an asshole…" Audrey pointed out. "I wasn't fucking joking before. You're a good cop, whether I like it or not. That's why I steered clear from you before..." she motioned at where she had been stabbed. "And now apparently you're really fuckin' corrupt working with me and shit, but I'm not complaining- what cop isn't these days? The way I see it with cops in this town, you're either corrupt or dumb as fuck- and before you get angsty on me, Monroe was both and I'll take one or the other over both. Johnny's an asshole, ignore what he said about you and Monroe."

He snorted. "I can't even argue that anymore…" he nodded at the gun. "You may wanna ditch it for a while. I called in the shooting, this place is about to be swarmed by my people and I may get taken to the hospital."

She nodded. "So what's the excuse now?"

"You're a friend visiting from out of town."

"You mean we could've gone with that and prevented all the craziness that came with those ideas?"

"That was before I knew my people accepted 'John Smith' as an acceptable name to bail out a suspect," he countered, then flinched again. "You know, I kind of miss my life from two weeks ago where nothing was going wrong and I only got a small case of guilt with shit involving the Saints and I could fight it off. My life wasn't exciting and I had a longer life expectancy…"

"Funny how things can really fuck up after one little thing goes wrong in your life, isn't it?"

"Says the one little thing…"

"Don't act like you didn't miss all of this."

"Did you already forget I just got shot? I don't miss having that almost happen on a daily basis."

"You said it was a graze, ya big baby. I took a sword to the gut, remember?" She countered. When he frowned at her again, she sighed. " Sorry…" she heard sirens in the background and put the gun away. "Okay, so I was in the bathroom, heard the gunshot, came out, saw 'the guy' leaving and stayed with you. Julius stopped by to talk Saints business with you."

Troy made a face. "How long have you had that one stored in your head? Did you plan on me getting shot and having that excuse? And we may have to limit it since for all I know some of the people who took you in will be here."

"Well, technically I had planned that one out with Johnny…" she trailed off. When there were heavy, precise footsteps from outside, she huffed, flipped her hair so it fell in her face and started hyperventilating. She had the nerve to wink at him just as the front door opened and cops poured in. She practically threw herself at the most-official looking one and brought her hands to her forehead to block her face more. "Oh, thank God! I-I-I- don't know what happened! I was just- there was- there was just a gunshot when I was, and then I came out and Troy was on the floor and there was a man leaving and and and-"

"Ma'am, calm down," the man replied and took hold of her arms carefully.

She tried not to grin before she added some overdramatics and yelped and shook to get him off of her.

The cop, to his credit, backpedalled quickly before turning his attention to Troy. "Chief, how bad is it?"

"It's a bad graze, Cap. Nothin' too bad that I can't handle."

Captain Ron Adams frowned down at him. "Do you know your attacker?"

"Guy who used to run the Saints before the new girl stepped in. No idea why he chose to do something now…" Troy replied.

"Right. Can you ID him?"

"I ran with them. Of course I can. What the Hell is with the interrogation?"

"Sorry, Boss. Procedure. And who's-"

"A friend of mine from out of town," Troy cut him off.

Ron looked back at Audrey and squinted, and the look wasn't lost on the other two.

Audrey whimpered again to get everyone's attention displaced.

Troy shook his head. "Look, just get me to the hospital so I can get patched up and be back at work tomorrow."

"You sure about that, Boss?" the other man asked, still not looking away from her.

"Well, I was gonna say you'd have to shoot me to stop me, but considering…" he shrugged, then flinched again.

Ron laughed, then waved two officers over. "Get our man to Memorial, huh? Ma'am… uh, you're welcome to have an officer accompany you to the hospital? You might want to get yourself checked out, too."

"I'm just shaken, Officer, b-but thank you, I think- yes."

"Good…" he led her outside and Troy and another officer followed. When she spotted the guy who she had punched she cursed her luck and wondered how he would be working the prison one part of thr week and patrol the next. She swerved to avoid him, and then saw two familiar faces again and dodged them before she saw some new, unsuspecting-looking cop and the Captain handed her off to him and he steered the pair back to the ambulance.

Ron watched the ambulance drive away, still squinting the whole time. After a few seconds, he waved at one of the other officers. "Hey, Hammond. Get over here."

"Yeah, Cap?"

"I need you to run a few favors. Get a bunch of photo and video we have on the Saints for me to check out later- up to when the Chief was running with them."

Hammond nodded slowly. "O… kay? Uh, if I get questioned about it?"

"Keep it under wraps as much as you can, but… I think the Chief's digging himself a hole. I'm just not sure if he's willing to throw himself into it just yet."

"And if word gets to the Chief…?"

"Don't let it. Now hurry up. I have a couple of phone calls to make."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, since now there's been a comment made on here or ff.net, just making a note that this fic is cross-posted on both sites, just the pennames are different. I would point out that on ff.net you can tell that most of my stuff from there is on here as well, but then I remembered I used the account that I used to share with a friend for posting it there and... well, that's why cross-checking could get complicated. Basically My_Dear_Watson, Watson-a-Name92 and Swatson- all me. There's a common theme. Movin' on.

Four hours and too many reflex tests later, she got carted off to see Troy, as asked. To her surprise, he had already gotten out of surgery and was more focused on getting out of the place. She walked into the room and he glanced up at her, then went back to poking at the gauze over his arm.

She walked over and flicked his good arm with her finger. “Hey, don’t make it worse. Playing with it makes it worse.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you and Quinn had it good when you were in a coma in a place like this.”

“Ours was in prison in that case too, pal. We still beat you.”

“Either way it sucks. Hell, you bailed out the window. Was there a note on your file about that?”

“Gave a fake name and didn’t have the same staff,” she shrugged.

 He snorted.  “I won’t argue the prison point.” She sat on the foot of his bed. “So what’s the deal? You gonna have a badass scar?”

“Wouldn’t call it badass, and they’re offering to let me keep the bullet- don’t give me that look, I’m not taking them up on it.”

 “But that would be so cool!” she objected.

“Yeah, well-“ Troy cut himself off when he saw a few people in scrubs run by while leading a gurney. A few purple-clad shoulders showed up a moment later, and he sat back to stay out of sight. “Audrey…” he murmured, then nodded at the doorway.

She had already turned when he looked alarmed and strained to see what was going on. She ran over and flanked the two groups, happy they were too wrapped up in watching whoever was on the gurney to notice her. That alone terrified her. Not again. But what if it was Quinn? It was just desserts but this looked _bad_.  She quickened her pace and managed to catch sight of just who it was when they turned a corner. When she recognized the hair first, she wasn’t sure how to process the odd relief and panic she felt.  “Oh my God, Johnny?!”

Her friend’s torso was drenched in blood to the point where she couldn’t even tell where he was bleeding from.

 “Audrey?!”

Audrey turned at her sister’s voice sharply and spared a glance back at Troy’s room’s door.  She took a giant step back to Troy’s door and yanked it shut, and when there was a thud from inside, and she hoped that Troy had just recognized the voice and hit the deck and nothing had gone wrong with his injury or the meds. “What happened?!”

“The Ronin came after us…” Quinn growled. “Aisha’s dead.”

Audrey was getting sick of how many times a blow like that was going to come when she was so out of the loop. “What?”

“They were waiting for us at their place. They took her hostage. She tried to warn us and got her head half chopped off for her trouble.”

Her stomach joined her heart. No. Could they really have been that cruel? She had thought the Ronin had some weird, stretched moral code. Had they really killed her just to even the playing field or get an upper hand? Were they stupid enough to think Johnny wouldn’t have gone apeshit if she got hurt, let alone killed? “Wha-“

“We tried to fight them off. We got some of them but then Johnny got a sword to the gut.”

“Fuck…” she sighed.

Quinn advanced on her. “The fuck are you doing here, too? Where were you?”

She paused. She couldn’t drag Pierce into this because she had been stupid and asked questions first. “Tobias got himself shot. We were going around-“ the second part of her sister’s questioning fully registered, as did the look of sheer hate on her face. _Oh. Hell. No._ “This isn’t on me. I haven’t been around because you chose to solve a fucking problem by stabbing me- you know, apparently what the Ronin did to Johnny, so excuse me for steering clear because it’s the smart thing to do. I already told you: I had my own shit to do banged up doing it. Don’t go pinning this on me. Neither of us can be in multiple places at once. Blame the Ronin. Use what you’re getting at me with and use it with them…” she growled. She heard the gurney turn in the distance. “He gonna be okay?”

“They don’t fucking know, and fuck if they’ll tell me…” Quinn countered. “I need you with me on this one. Sounds like you still have some… hard feelings about our… disagreement, so if not for me, then for Johnny and Aish.”

“Then you’ll have me,” she replied.

“Good,” Quinn growled. “We start planning shit tonight and go after them tomorrow. Be at the beach house by seven.” She walked off without another word.

Audrey waited a few moments, then took a step back towards Troy’s door. She triple checked the hallway, then headed back into the room. He was back on the bed, sitting like he was ready to jump up and bolt if he had to. She spared a glance at him to make sure she was okay and when he looked at her like he was figuring out what to say she figured that brief worry had been for nothing. She shut the door. “I uh…”

“Aisha, huh?” he asked.

“You heard…”

He sighed. “I liked her…”when the shit hit the fan and you guys all found out… turns out she lived a block away from me. Somehow she found out my address, came by- punched me in the face and left. I still think that’s the most stable reaction I got out of everyone but you.” He glanced down. “Go.”

She perked up. “What?”

“Gat’s out of play and your guy Carlos and Aisha are dead. Hell, I want to see these guys pay. Aish… Aish was out. She was home free and these sick fucks just decided to end that because of association? Fuck, I want to get back at them. No one deserves that shit.”

“I don’t know how long I’m gonna be out, and trying to contact you is gonna be a bitch since I think she’s already suspicious…” she trailed off. “You’re gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. I can get the spotlight off’a you guys for a while, too.”

She smiled uneasily at that, then hugged him as best she could without hurting him. “We have the most fucked up friendship ever, you know that? I’ve said it before but I’m pretty sure this just booted the line like, a few inches away as far as the cap on how weird the whole… gang member and police chief friendship can get.”

“Don’t remind me. Just be careful. And if someone tries to kill you…”

“I’ll kill them right back-“

“Nooo, that…” he stopped short. “I can’t even say shit because that’s our thing from back when I was one of you guys. I-“

“And it’ll just be the gangs so I’m doing your job for you. No innocents will be harmed in the making of this revenge play. At least on my end. I can’t speak for the others.”

Troy sighed. “I knew that wasn’t gonna make me feel better. Get outta here before Quinn starts callin’ bullshit.”

She beamed and kissed his cheek. “Don’t get in too much trouble?”

“Without you under my roof? It’ll be a nice vacation. And if Johnny… recovers from whatever’s up with him and comes after me, it’s your damn fault.”

“Well, Julius’, if you really think about it.”

“Point still stands. Now get.”

“Yes, sir, Officer sir.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Audrey flopped down onto her bed and went through the mental list she had been ticking things off of since that night. It had been a long one, trying to get her room itself back, then trying to figure out what guns hadn’t been carted off or stolen when her own people probably thought she was dead. The thing was she was finding it hard to care at that particular moment. She was jostled out of her thoughts when her phone rang. At least she had that back and it was worth it. She didn’t know the number, and she went through a weak threat to tell whatever telemarketer was calling before she picked up.

 _“Hey, Playa’. Ready to talk now_?”

She shot upright at Julius’ voice and out of instinct looked at the drawer with her gun in it. She wanted to know how the Hell he had found her number since she had destroyed the last two phones she had since she knew him.  “How the fuck do you think shooting my friend would make me more open to listening to your bullshit?”

“ _It was a test for you- to see if you were just yankin’ the guy’s chain and were really with the Saints or no_ t.”

“Yeah, well, I learned how to play both sides from the best.”

“ _I didn’t do a kill shot on him, did I? I still want to talk shop. You can spare a few minutes now that there’s no threat, right?_ ”

“Speaking of shot, how’s that shoulder blade?”

“ _Fine. I want you to know the offer is still available_.”

“What… offer?”

“ _Work with me. Take down the Saints. Get your sister out of power. Run things. If you’re still loyal to Troy you guys can work something out.”  When she was silent, he went on. “You’re good, Princess. You’re better than your sister in a lot of ways. You could lead without causing disaster. You want as much death as necessary, not a massacre for the Hell of it. You could bring back what the Saints were- what the Saints should be again_.”

“Fuck you.”

“ _You know, you should be reasonable to the guy who bailed you out of jail._ ”

She went absolutely still at that. _Of course_. It just _figured_ that it was him. It was so obviously true that she didn’t have it in her to call him a liar. Hell, after seeing him she should’ve seen that coming. He would play the field as much as he could. She had a sinking feeling that was exactly why he was playing this game. There was something up with this- something he wanted for himself. She scoffed.  “Goodbye, Julius.” She hung up and tossed down her phone, then sighed. She had more important calls to make now that protected her own people. She called Tobias’ number and sighed when there was no response. “Hey, Tobe, it’s Aud. Just… stay low for a while and if you have to go out make it looks like moving hurts, will you? I’ll explain eventually. See you soon. Love ya.”  She hung up and the door to her room immediately swung open and she tried to look as casual as possible. She exhaled sharply when she saw it was Pierce. “Hey.”

“Hey, sorry, didn’t realize you were in here…” he greeted, then sat next to her.

“Didn’t realize-? This is actually my room, you little shit. I called dibs when we bought it.”

“You’ve been gone for weeks and the guys have already started bidding on it.”

“I’ll handle it. Quinn wants to head out now?”

“Mm hm.  She’s running damage control. She has a few things to do and then she’s gonna meet us by that Ronin hideout. We’re supposed to destroy a buncha Ronin hideouts. Give them no ground to go to and shit. Also…” he tossed her a set of car keys so they landed in her lap. “Got Lola back again.”

She took them and squealed then rolled on her side to face him. “Why aren’t you and I married yet?”

“Because I don’t bat for your team most of the time and we’d work so well we’d be bored after the first week?”

“Sounds about right.”

There was a hollow thud from outside and the pair turned to see Quinn come in the room. She was toting a 44 and SMG. “You fuckers ready yet?”

“Can we go over the final details?” Audrey countered.  “Game plan? Positions?”

“Pick a spot and kill all the Ronin you can…” Quinn replied.

Audrey gawked at her, then sighed. “Pierce, give us a minute.”

“Bu-“

“ _Now_.”

“I’ll… go get Lola started…” Pierce suggested and left the room.

When he was gone, Audrey turned to her sister. “You sure you wanna do this today?”

“Fuck yeah…” Quinn nodded. She held up the SMG to examine it.

Audrey sighed. “Look, Quinn, we can’t go all out. You’re an emotional fucking mess right now, do you really think that’s gonna do us any favors?”

“I am better when I’m angry.”

“Stop! No! This is gonna fuck you up! I want to get the fucks who did this to Johnny and Aish just as much as you do, but you need to fucking breathe.” When Quinn just glared at her, she shoved her sister’s arms down in order to grab them. “Look, I know you have a really… weird, fucked up crush on Johnny, okay? I’m not one to judge considering my track record and stop giving me that look, that’s not what I’m getting at- point is I know you’re emotional as fuck and want to end anyone who almost ended Johnny- and Aish. But you’re gonna get sloppy if you keep this up, so breathe first, alright? Give it another day.”

Quinn stared at her then squared her shoulders. “Fuck no. Get your rifle so we can get out…” Just like the hospital, she left in a huff.

Audrey watched her, then groaned. This was not at all going to end well.

* * *

 

Closer. Closer. Closer. _There_.

Audrey watched the Ronin she had been tracking go down after her shot to his face, then went to work lining up the next one. The parking lot was empty, aside from the Ronin. It was wide open, which made her job both worse and better but they needed more people on the ground. Where had Quinn gone? Where was Pierce? Was he really just going to wait around for them in the getaway car a few blocks away? She waited for the second panicked Ronin to hurry into her crosshairs, and when he finally did, the next thing she saw through the scope was a knife fly straight between his eyes. “FUCK!” she jumped back. Well, there was the answer to the first question.  She moved the scope in the direction the knife had come from, and sure enough, Quinn was there firing her pistols at some of the Ronin. Something in her twisted when she saw her sister’s sadistic smile as she went. She had seen that very thing from varying angles, or had only seen it for a split second in a fight before she had to pay attention to another thing. But seeing it this close, seeing it after not being around that insanity for a while- it was concerning- and a bit terrifying if she was honest. What if Julius was right?  She had started to wonder about it and believe it, which was worse, earlier that day but managed to stop those thoughts after a while, but they were still there hanging out in the back of her mind. What if Quinn _had_ gone overboard? Johnny would follow Quinn down any path- if he survived this whole thing, so what if someone had to stop _them_? It was most definitely going to have to be her and she wasn’t sure if she could take the pair of them on. And even if she did and won, she would have to lead. Leading had never been her strong suit. She didn’t want so many of her friends under her rule, either. No. She shook her head. She needed to stop thinking that way. That was Julius getting to her and she didn’t need that. And the concern was just from hanging around Troy so much. She minded that less, but it was just as annoying. She struggled to catch up with the kills she should’ve made during that brief crisis, then realized the place was empty.

That meant less spot for the Ronin to run to. Good. She broke down the gun quickly and all but dove onto the fire escape. She powered down the stairs. and powered down the stairs. When Pierce came skidding around the corner in Lola, she stopped short. “Where the Hell have you been?”

“Uh, makin’ sure no one else joined the other Ronin? Shit, what else would I be doing?”

“I doubt-“

“No, that’s the fuckin’ plan,” Quinn insisted. “Get them all here and kill ‘em all.”

The pair turned to see Quinn had joined them. The older woman jabbed her finger down the street. “This is all me now. Get the Hell out of here.”

Audrey made a face. “Are you kidding me?! One against an army that’s already pissed at you?”

“Well, I’ll just have to get them first,” Quinn replied.

Audrey stared at her, then shrugged. “Fine. See you soon.” She reached over and shoved Pierce’s knee down so he gunned the gas pedal and had Lola speed off.

Pierce had merely shrieked in alarm at first, then  frowned at Audrey and shook her hand off. “We’re just gonna leave her here?!”

“She wanted it, she’s got it,” Audrey nodded.

“But-“ Pierce made a face. “Girl, since when are you one to leave people behind in certain death situation?”

She frowned at him and arched an eyebrow.

Pierce hesitated, then flinched and nodded. “Right, since she did the same thing to you.”  

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner.”

Pierce sighed. “I’m going back for her later.”

“She’ll be fine,” Audrey replied. After a beat, she remembered the look her sister had and her stomach twisted again. It was fucking time. Who the Hell was she kidding? Julius was right- to a point, and damn it, so many people didn’t need to die.  Her sister was part of the damn problem. The trick was solving it without getting Julius involved. She hated that he had gotten through so easily, but he had and now she couldn’t _not_ think about it. She tried not to feel bad when she started hatching a plan.

While she was plotting, Pierce’s frown deepened. “Man, what the Hell happened to you lately? Your sister tries to kill you, you disappear for two weeks, then suddenly you’re back, no questions asked. Hell, if I didn’t know better I’d think you’re wearing a wire.”

And just like that the rest of the planning went absolutely still and watched him out of the corner of her eye. When he didn’t look at her accusingly, she inhaled sharply.

Pierce shrugged. “Then again, it sounds like if that was the case you’d have to choose between your crazy ass sister and the guy who screwed you over, so it’s a lose-lose, huh? You ain’t one for lose-lose situations.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”  

Pierce nodded. “So… what is with you and the Chief though? Like, you’re the only one who hasn’t said shit. Everybody else bitches about him.”

She paused again. How much leeway could she give the story? Telling too little would be suspicious at this rate. “He was my best friend. He fucked up. There’s not much else to say.”

“Must be hard then, being that when we’re not after the other gangs we’re after the cops.”

 _Defensive, then._ “It’s not. Family- blood or not comes first. What’s it to you?”

“Just makin’ conversation. Chill.”

“I – look, it is. Like I said he was my best friend. He was there when I joined the Saints and we clicked. He looked after me and I looked after him. He dug me out of a bunch of holes, and then shoved me right back into the biggest one when Quinn and I were taking our trip to Hell. I don’t like liars as much as I don’t like killing for sport, Pierce. Now we’re just players on the opposite side of the board…” she sighed. Her insides twisted at how real it suddenly was. As if Stupid Fucking Julius’ offer wasn’t swimming in her mind enough. “Honestly I wish he and I were better shots so there’s a better chance one of us can kill the other just to get rid of the drama that goes with it. I don’t… like talking about it.”

“… Well that’s depressing.”

“True though… it’d save me a lot of trouble…”

Pierce laughed. “Oh, so you’re assuming it would be you who would take the first shot? Now that’s more like it. Now where do you wanna get dropped?”

“How about… Aisha’s old place?”

Pierce’s head whipped in her direction. “Why?!”

“I need to see this shit for myself.”

“Alright, but your funeral. And I ain’t gettin’ too close.”

“I’m not expecting you to. Just get me as close as you can and I’ll take it from there.”

Pierce shrugged again. “I’ll take your word for it.”

The rest of the ride passed in silence until they reached the neighborhood. When they did, Audrey got out and with a quick pat to Lola’s door and a threat at Pierce to keep the truck safe, she headed towards Aisha’s house, and even with the police presence scattered around, she couldn’t not bring herself to check out even the exterior, even if it wasn’t where she was actually headed. The windows were smashed to Hell, and she caught sight of a spray of blood on one wall and hoped it was one of the Ronin’s and not Aisha’s. She and the other woman had never really seen eye to eye, but that wasn’t to say they weren’t civil, and no one deserved to go that way- well, no one that wasn’t involved in the gang scene anymore, anyway.  She spotted a squad car heading her way and bolted for the nearest yard. It ws just a few jumps over fences to Troy’s place now. A matter of minutes and three jumps in the wrong direction, she made it to his place. To her surprise, someone had already fixed the lock again. She picked it, then stepped inside. She headed for the map on its wall, then spotted what she was looking for: the map- and more importantly, the updated potential location of the Brotherhood hideout where Maero was. At this rate, he was her best bet for… whatever she was going to do. She still wasn’t sure on the details. That made the next few hours dangerous, but she couldn’t just sit around anymore. She went to work folding then tearing the spot on the map, then took it off and pocketed it. She knew Troy was going to kill her for this one. Maybe it was going to be literal, too. At least she could argue her plan was a means for all of them to get along- sort of. That was another thing she needed to work out. 

But now she had a sales pitch and a few escape routes to plan, and that was priority number one.

She just hoped it would stay that way for a while.


	8. Chapter 8

Audrey stopped short a few paces away from the Brotherhood hideout. For the first time that entire day, she realized just how stupid her plan was. And when she saw most of the windows were blocked out, the visible goons that were walking around inside were wearing black and not red, and there was a single candle in one window whose meaning was not lost on her, it all but confirmed it. They were still in mourning for Jessica, and they were probably going to want to go for blood now. And she was the blood of the exact blood they were looking for. And she might as well have gift-wrapped herself by walking right into their territory. _Fuck_. She was as doomed as could be. Hell, they probably had a sniper rifle on her somewhere, too. She could feel her life expectancy dropping by the second. 

She hesitated, then groaned. She took her phone out of her pocket and dialed Troy’s number and waited. She wasn’t exactly sure whether she was okay with the fact that it went straight to voicemail. “Heeeyyy, buddy. It’s me. I… fucked up. A lot. Like, fucked up so much I can’t even fucking talk you into saving me from this one. Because I’m a fucking moron. Really who the fuck in their right mind would go to try and arrange something when part of their family killed the family of the one they want to arrange something with?  Things… are about to be extremely bad for me. You’re probably already mad, so uh, if you’re even listening to this anymore, just… please send someone or Tobias to the Brotherhood hideout- the Sommerset Apartments one-    to get my corpse, at this rate. I uh… … whoo." She could barely let herself continue that train of thought, so she went with the grander scheme of things... and felt her heart break as she did. "I uh, look, I’m sorry for everything I dragged you through since I've known you. I’m sorry for the Saints’ sake, too. You’ve always been right, and I’ve always been wrong no matter what we’ve argued about and I’m too fucking headstrong to have ever gotten that. Because all things aside you’re my best friend and I love you. And if Quinn or Johnny or Pierce gets word of this going south, just… look after them for me, keep doing what you’ve been doing before I complicated everything-“ she stopped short when she saw a couple of Brotherhood goons had spotted her. “Fuck. And tell Tobias and Laura I love them too, huh? Bye.” She had barely gotten off the phone before two goons had started to come over. She offered a grin, then tossed her phone behind her and put her hands up. “Easy, fellas. Just here to see Maero. No tricks, no-“ She saw one smirk, then raise his fist. “Yeah, nope…” she forced out before there was a sharp pain at the side of her head and everything went dark.

* * *

 

When she came to, she was immediately aware of the feel of something cold, heavy and wet covering her. She abruptly remembered the last few moments she was concious, and then after another moment she remembered that her sister had used acid on Maero. She realized whatever she was covered in had the consistency of water. She snapped out of her haze when she immediately put together that acid was more the Brotherhood's style. She yelped and attempted to scramble to her feet. She ended up tripping over her own feet for her trouble and stumbled back. Still, nothing burned and she was ice cold now, so it had been just water. There was that, at least. 

There was a low scoff from in front of her, and she looked up to see Maero holding a large, metallic bucket. When they made eye-contact, he held it up, then jerked it so some of it sloshed out. “Water. I’m not like your sister. You wanna talk, I need you awake, not burned to shit." 

She glanced down at her arms for good measure, and when there were no burns, she glanced back at him. When he looked at her expectantly, she rose to her feet. 

He sat down in the chair a few paces away. “ _You’re_ not like your sister either, which is why we’re having this conversation and I didn’t let my boys kill you.”

“Yeah, but considering I'm my sister's sister, Ihink you woulda reserved the honor of killing me for yourself anyway, right? So the jury's still out," she countered. 

Maero scoffed again. “And that arrogance is why I figured you didn’t come here with a death wish, either. Not to mention, word is that your sister’s the reason you’ve been outta play for a while. You look good for potentially being dead.”

“I eat right, limit my sun intake and exercise," she countered. 

Maero leaned back in his chair. “So why the fuck are you here?”

She studied him for a while. He didn't seem like he was itching for a fight like she had expected. He looked genuinely interested, and that was as terrifying as it was puzzling. She realized that she probably should risk the sales pitch anyway. She had no clue if she was going to get to do it again, so it was now or never. She squared her shoulders and tried to look as cavalier as possible. That persona usually paid off. “You know what I like, pal? Money. And things going smoothly. You know what makes things not go smoothly? Gang wars over stupid shit and friends and family dying.”

“Your sister’s the one who killed Jessica,” Maero pointed out.

Now that cracked the facade just enough. She scowled. “And you dragged a kid behind your truck for miles. His name was Carlos. He deserved better. We're all fucking guilty, don't go pointing fingers.” She was surprised when his answering shrug seemed like he was acknowledging that she made a point.

“So what do you suggest? Because I already don’t like where this is going.”

“No killing, no turf wars. Stillwater can get split between all of us, don’t you think? We all get the same shit- bases, dens, chop shops- and if we want expansion, we’ll help each other out. Why be separate when we can be one giant entity? We’d gain more money in an eighth of the time we would spend trying to kill each other to get more than another person. First step Stillwater, next the world and all that shit.

“So no colors, no… advantages. We work together?” He didn’t sound so happy.

“Safer for all of us. Not safer for the surrounding towns. Imagine it. Imagine our best dealers- our best mechanics… our best shots… we’d make a Hell of a team, wouldn’t we?”

“And this is for… literally all of us? Samedis, Ronin, my people, and yours?”

She nodded. “Well, people who qualify as ‘my people’ are limited right now… but yes.”

“And you came to me first… why?”

“Because we’re both sore- sore over my sister being a conniving little bitch. If I can convince you, it’s only a matter of time for the others. Samedis should be pretty easy, Ronin could go both ways, being that they have the upperhand on the Saints right about now…”

“I’m gonna want blood. Your sister might… be collateral damage,” he countered, and his smirk was downright evil.

She snorted and lifted the hem of her shirt to show the scar from the sword wound. “Remember where I was almost a casualty of her stupidity? You said yourself it’s a reason I’m alive now, so I can live with that. So don’t even tell me this isn’t working for you. You want me alive to be your advantage at one point. We can work things out.”

“It crossed my mind.” He stood up, then wandered over to the table in the corner. “Team effort, little to no murders within the ranks, get to settle losing Jess… gotta say, I’m liking the offer.”

Audrey exhaled sharply. Well, that was a start- and one Hell of a start at that.

“Wish you woulda come to me sooner, being that there was a different offer I like just as much. Your chances would be better if you had come to me three days ago.”

“Wait, wha-“ she stopped short again when something stuck her arm- a needle, she realized. She glanced down. He had injected her with something that looked dangerously like whatever the Samedis had been trafficking.  She leaned back and tried not to panic when everything started blurring already. “Shit, that’s fast-acting…” she muttered.

“It is,” Maero agreed. He took hold of her chin firmly and tried to coax her to look at him. “I’m still liking your terms since you’ll make it easy to get to your sister, though. So… I’ll consider it. And I’ll keep in touch.” He let go of her, and she lurched forward.

She was vaguely aware that two newcomers had arrived and had begun to drag her outside. She flinched at the amped up sunlight, then started to struggle when she felt one of the goons move to hold her arms and the others to hold her legs, then felt herself getting rocked side to side. “The fuck…?” She spotted something that was decidedly dumpster-shaped, and then she was sailing through the air for a few seconds, then dropped onto something hard and metallic, and the sound that followed made her head spin. Another beat, and there was a creak, and then something blocked out the right. Yep. Definitely a dumpster.  And then the world started spinning around her.

Yeah, she was screwed.

* * *

 

Troy was starting to wonder just how many times he had to muse that he was going to proverbially kill Audrey. Or, literally, for that matter, but that was already on the darker side of his too-real thoughts, given the situation. But the message he came home to (after being out of the hospital for a grand total of two hours, no less) he wasn’t sure how to take it. He was worried about her more than usual, even if she had admitted doing possibly the dumbest thing she could do.

And that dumb thing led to the dumbest thing he could do, judging by the shirtless, redheaded _giant_ who was sitting in his car next to him, pointing an SMG at his head as they made their way to the Sommerset Apartments.

Audrey was right- he had tabs on most of the people closest to her. He’d never admit it, but even before she had shown up in his office inches from death, he had kept an eye on her and her known contacts in case something like any of what had happened in the last few weeks would’ve happened. He still called her his best friend all things aside too, and if keeping track of her and her people meant looking after her in a weird way, then damn it, he’d do it. But if he did find her dead, like she had mentioned- what then?

Well, for starters Tobias might kill him for not getting there sooner. Or some other excuse he could come up with. When he tracked the other man down and shown up at his door, before it was even open he had a gun to his head so he had blurted out that Audrey was in trouble, and that had been enough- for that moment, but it was just enough forced trust that he held him at gunpoint and didn’t shoot him on sight. But based on the guy’s priors, that could’ve changed quickly.

Keeping quiet seemed to do the trick. They made it to the Apartments, and when they got out, the forced silenced got downright uncomfortable since they were both starting to dread what they might find. The Apartments seemed fairly empty, at least for the moment, so they had that to go on. They mattered to mutter directions at each other on how to get into the building. Troy stopped short when he spotted a dumpster in the corner. There had been far too many things that he and his people had found in dumpsters that didn’t make his heart sink further. “Wait…”

Tobias followed his line of sight, then frowned. “Shit…”

Troy sighed and walked over to it. “Just… keep an eye out, will ya?”

“Yeah…” Tobias nodded.

Troy squared his shoulders again, then walked over to the dumpster again. All that anger that he had been having over her drama the last few days and all of the complaints he had been planning on yelling at her suddenly seemed far too mean. Deserved, but mean. Something in the back of his head wondered if he was going to find a different Saint- or Quinn, given the last few altercations the Saints and Brotherhood had. But no, if Audrey said she was going to be there and knew her odds, it was probably her. “Come on…” he muttered to himself. He sighed again, then lifted the lid of the dumpster and tossed it, and then:

“… Christ! Warn a girl before you fucking turn the lights on!”

“Dree?!” Troy blurted. Tobias was next to him in a second, and they both reached in to pull her to her feet.

She flinched at the sunlight again, then stared at them. After they came into focus for her, she beamed. “Guys! Heeeyyy! If it isn’t my favorite two people with questionable hairstyle and facial hair choices!” She tossed an arm around each of their necks.

“Dree, what the shit?!”Troy demanded.

She squinted at him. “Why’re you mad at me? And… where the fuck am I?”

Troy scoffed. “ ‘Why?’ ‘ _Why_?!’ I’ll fucking tell you why-“ he stopped short when he spotted smudged blood on her neck. “What…?” he grabbed her chin to move her head sideways to check it out.

“Ow! Easy on the goods! The last guy that got that rough had to pay, you know!”

Troy groaned at the comment, then sighed. “What did they do to you…?” he looked at Tobias. “Any idea what this shit is if it’s drugs?”

“Why? Because I’m the resident drug dealer I'd immediately know?” Tobias countered after a while.

Troy hesitated, then frowned. “Well, considering!”

Tobias tossed his hands up. “How the fuck should I know? I know _my_ shit that I deal- which… may or may not be two third of the city’s supply.”

“… Do you really wanna play that game when I’m helping my old people- ya know, Saints- and not doing shit? You get a free pass.”

“I don’t trust cops.”

“I’m the highest ranking cop in the city and I’m not doing shit. You’re good.”

“I bet that’s what they all say…” Tobias muttered.

“We- look, do you know or not?!”  Troy snapped.

“No, but I’ve heard about new stuff on the street. Crazy different reactions for everyone. And this one hasn’t been around stuff that strong that I know of, so this is… might be that.”

Troy glanced back at Audrey, who had suddenly found her bra strap interesting during the argument “Dree, was this Maero or one of his people? Did he say anything about the stuff he injected you with?” he rolled his eyes when Tobias snorted.

“I don’t fuckin’ know! I can’t remember how I got this fucked up. And no one answered about why I’m in a dumpster.” Audrey objected.

“What do you remember?”

“Get me out of the dumpster first, please? I’m  pretty sure I’m not the only human… _thing_ in here.”

Both men grimaced, then took an arm and hauled her up and out- which ended badly since the second she got waist-up out of it, she went full-on dead weight and ended up falling out of it the rest of the way. “Ow! Shit!”

“Alright, let’s go home…” Troy sighed.

“Yes. Good idea,” she pointed at him.

Tobias pulled a face. “Wait, so… the Saints are good with you running with the Chief?”

“Haaaa, not at all!” Audrey corrected.

“Then how are you getting home?” Tobias asked. 

“This guy’s been my contact, you ass. It’s _his_ home. When I leave your neck of the woods, I go to him. And vice versa, Troy, I’m sorry- he’s been the other one taking me in when I'm out.”

“I figured…” Troy deadpanned. “Now come on, who knows where any Brotherhood guys are…” he eased an arm around her shoulders and eased him towards the car.

She leaned into him. “Ha, you’re comfy.”

“And you’re really, _really_ high," Troy countered. 

“You should see the other guy," she replied. 

Troy stared at her for a while. “… Christ, what the Hell was in what they gave you?”

“Lotsa shit, if I had ta' guess." She shrugged, then found a particular wave in her hair interesting and started playing with it. After a few moments, she looked thoughtful. "Should I feel more drunk than high?“

“ _No,"_ Troy sighed and started rubbing his eyes. He could feel the headache coming and he knew it was going to be one Hell of a migraine at this rate. 

“ ‘ Cause I do.”

“Clearly.”

“Why are you such a dick, Troy?!”

“Not even gonna answer that.”

* * *

 

Another few minutes later, Troy hated his life all over again. First off,  they passed five squad cars on the way back in which each driver looked right at him and didn’t think much of the shirtless man next to him, or the girl sandwiched between them whose eyelids were drooping. Second, it wasn’t his fucking fault Audrey had gotten injected with something and was now borderline literally bouncing off the walls. Third, Audrey's high state had convinced her that asking why they hadn’t “at least boned” back in the day was the number one priority: _“I mean, we were hot. We were good together. I would’ve at least sucked your dick. Why didn’t we?” “Because I was undercover, you were just on the right side of legal and-“ “Twenty isn’t ‘just on the right side of legal,”  it was two years passed legal”  “Point still stan- and if you try to grab my crotch again we’re gonna have a prob- What did I just say?! Shit, Tobias, I will scrub your record clean if you keep her hands away from my dick” “I thought you said you weren’t corrupt,” “I hate both of you. I should crash this car, see if you’re laughing then"_ all in all, not a great conversation for him. 

When they got back to his house, Troy thought he was home free. That was, until Tobias had to practically wrestle Audrey out of the car. When he let go of her, she made it three steps and then promptly stumbled and faceplanted into the garden.

Tobias had the nerve to laugh in his face before leaving.

Troy considered counting the whole thing as another strike against them, but when he heard Audrey get up, only to collapse against his front door, then knock on it and yell for him to ‘get his ass out of the house’, no less, he figured anything that required that much brain power would have to be banned for the day.

He was going to have a nice, long chat with her when she was back to her usual mental stability. He just wished he knew how long that would take.


	9. Chapter 9

When Audrey woke, she had the mixed feelings of being lightheaded and also feeling like death. Not a great combo to begin with, but being that she had expected worse the moment she got injected, she’d take it. She was suddenly aware she was in Troy’s room again, in his bed and sighed. Well, at least she had made it back in some capacity. She felt a weight by her leg and glanced down to see Troy at the foot of the bed, bottle of some sort of alcohol in one hand, badge in the other. Well, that was worse of a combo if she said so herself. She grunted and stretched so giving away that she was awake would come across as subtle.

He glanced at her and sighed. “Hey. How you feelin’?”

She wanted to grimace at the fact that he looked like he was ready to puke. Something was definitely wrong. “ ‘Bout as bad as you look. The fuck happen’ when I was out?”

“Turns out you were a guinea pig. The Samedis bagged your sister, injected her with that shit, but uh, either she’s got a better tolerance or they went overboard with you, because she got hold of a gun and wrecked a couple of blocks. You- you’ve been out for a day straight.”

“Fuck. She alive?”

“Far as I know.”

She sat up carefully and watched him watching her. “You’re mad.”

“Mad? I told you before- mad doesn’t cover it. I-“

She flinched after a moment. “Oh God, that voicemail. I’m sor-“

He scoffed and leaned forward. The silence between them was unbearably heavy, and he struggled to find words to fill it. “Just… fuckin’ stop. Please…” he sighed. “Look, I’m glad you’re okay, but… “ he paused to rub his neck, and she suddenly realized that was his tell. It had taken her far too long to figure that out, but at least she knew now- and so many things he had said while doing that came to mind, and she couldn’t figure out where he was going with… whatever was next. He sighed and continued, “shit, you’re in no shape to hear this-“

“I’m a fast… recoverer. I’m coherent enough. I get it. I can leave. I’m out of strikes, I know. Look, I called you to get my _body,_ not _me._ I already owe you too much and now I’m alive, apparently because of you too, so I owe you.”

“Dree, I… you’ve been out of strikes. You’ve been out of strikes, and I’ve just kept going with it. This isn’t on you, it’s on me. Hell, I should’ve locked you up the second you fell into my office, but I didn’t. That ain’t your fault.” He paused again. “You know I would take a bullet for you, right?”

Her frown deepened and she glanced at his arm when she recalled that he basically had. “Troy…”

“No. You don’t get to talk your way out of this. Shit. Ever since I was with you people, my life’s been shit, you know that? When I was running with you, when we picked you and your sister up, Christ, when I had to go home every night and check in with my actual people, when I had to go to the station for a while and just hear about your antics… none of you know that I went out of my fuckin’ mind worrying about all of you. I fuckin’ prayed every time that I heard about a shootout or worse that I wouldn’t hear that one of you got yourselves killed. You, or Johnny, or Dex. Or Lin before that _did_ go to shit. Or any of the other ones. And then you and your sister got blown sky high because Julius thought it was best- and I helped it happen by not doing anything -“

She sat up further and scooted closer to him. “You did do shit. At least for me. I was just too pissed at the time to notice.”

Troy flinched. She had a point. Hours before Julius’ stunt on the boat he had knew something was going to go sideways and he had camped out in her truck for hours and waited on her because he figured if he came clean about everything and told her to lay low, she’d be the only understanding one. Of course, things had gone south fast and she saw the badge before he could even start explaining, and then things went even worse when it went from ‘you killed a cop?!’ to ‘I _am_ a cop’ and plateaued at worst when she had punched him almost as hard as the worst punch he had taken on the job, and left. And then came the boat fiasco that he had learned she was part of after the fact. His jaw even ached at the memory. 

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s it. Being involved too much. You know you’re safe because I’m a fuckin’ idiot who’s not gonna take you or any others, but you need to keep me in the fuckin’ loop, because I’m fuckin’ done being a step behind and cleaning up after you. So what the fuck was your brilliant plan?”

“Gang collective. Stronger outputs, less dying on all fronts.”

Troy hesitated. “And the cops get exterminated?”

“Didn’t get that far in the planning yet. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” she smiled weakly. “Come on, you watch my back, I watch yours. That deal hasn’t changed. Ever.”

“Yeah, well that’s not really reassuring nowadays. And I do give a shit about my own cops- which is why anything involving ending them ain't gonna fly.”

“I know. Like I said, it was a work in progress.”

“And you still went into a place you expected to have no chance of survival in? For a _work in progress_?” 

Audrey blanched at the return to the main topic, and then shrugged. “I’m a thief, Troy. Unless there’s a literal payoff with cash at the end of whatever I’m doing, planning isn’t my forte. You wanted to know, I told you. You’re safe, I can cover my tracks and avoid having them lead to you. You may not approve, and you can try to stop me, but you’ll lose.”

“I'll lose-? are you _threatening_ me?!”

“No. I just... shit's coming together and I'm just- it's time I look after you instead of dragging you into all this shit. It's my turn to look out for my best friend, and if that's... making a shitty future plan, so be it.”

“Is that all this is?” he asked after a moment. “That all... we are?”

It was her turn to gawk at him as she caught his meaning after a moment. He couldn't even look back at her, and he looked like he was ready to puke.

“Look, you... said some shit in the car on the way back and... we've always been... complicated, and lately... I'm just sick of getting jerked around here and-” he stopped short when she advanced on him and shoved him against the wall, promptly going from looking ready-to-puke to shell-shocked.

She seemed to realize they were about to do this and cross about twenty different lines that she wasn’t sure if it was safe or fair for either of them to cross. Then again, she had never been one to follow rules- actual, legally binding ones or otherwise. “Fuck it...”she all but slammed her mouth against his and arched into him- 

and the front door to the house opened with a rather loud creak and the pair all but sprang apart.

Troy, to his credit managed a swear, groan and some comment about investing in a tripwire for his front door all in one go before he pulled back. “ _Gat,_ I swear to God-“

“Since when the fuck are you talking to Johnny again?”

Audrey froze, then pulled back from Troy, who was still looking quite shell-shocked from the last few seconds. She took that as an ego boost, since not having one anytime recently hadn't done her any favors. More importantly, that voice was most definitely not Johnny.  “ _Bradshaw_ , is that…?”

“He betray you as much as I did,” he hissed. “You can deal with him if you can deal with me.”

“Yeah, but you had a fucking excuse. You had a job. This one- this one had job _offers. In his head._ This one just left us-“ she stopped short when Dex showed up in the hallway. She elbowed her way in front of Troy before he had the chance to start to block her from view. “Hello, Dex.”

The newcomer stopped mid-step. “Holy shit. Princess, I thought you were dead.”

“That’s the popular theory. How’s the job at Ultor treating you?”

Dex squinted at her. “How-?”

“Broke in. Found a buncha tapes from this one’s files- the one where you called him being a cop and all that. Thanks for filling me in about my best friend being on the opposite side of the law, by the way, really appreciate it.”

“Doesn’t look like it would’ve changed much,” Dex pointed out.

“Why the Hell are you here, Dex? Thought we had an agreement about keeping our distance after… everything,” Troy cut him off.

“Because we have a… common problem, and… I think I got a solution. It involves an old friend of all of ours and a couple of the new one’s- for Troy and I anyway.”

“If the first one’s Julius, we’ve already heard the plan,” Troy replied.

“It involves him, but it ain’t his plan. The fuck happened with him? He found you two?”

Troy snorted. “Yeah. Had his own idea about bringing the Saints down with Dree’s help. Broke into my house, too. Which reminds me. Lockpick kit- _now.”_ He held out his hand. 

Dex huffed, then handed it over. “I can always get more.”

“I'll put a goddamn notice out on every shop to not sell you any,” Troy shot back. “As I was saying, we didn’t like it, and he shot me in the arm to try to prove a point. Too bad for him that made his case worse. What’s your plan?”

Dex looked between his friends, then shrugged. “The Saints and Julius want blood, I can- pretend to give them blood. See, we set up at the old Church-“

“No,” the other two said together. They had been on the listening end of Dex's theories before, and both doubted he had gotten any smarter with them. Especially if it involved the Church.

“The fuck not?” Dex snapped.

“It’s our old stomping grounds before things went to shit and I don’t wanna mess with that,” Audrey replied. “Besides, aren't your own security people and the mercs you hired- don't give me that look, I know how they move- put a stop to that?”

Dex shrugged. “Not if I tell them to get lost or just wait until shit goes down, Princess,” Dex explained. “Let Queenie and Julius do the hard work.”

“It’s a fuckin’ church,” Troy added. “So that's another 'no' either way.”

Dex made a face. “So…?”

“I’m not gonna let a shootout happen-“

“It won't be there, haven't you been listening, man?” Dex snapped. “Look, they start there, my boys come in and herd them away. They try to escape, Queenie goes for blood for all of them, we all win.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Troy asked.

“I have some Ultor boys ready to go. We pull some strings, arrange a meet at the Church so it's like things are about to get real sentimental and shit, and then Ultor comes in and... steers them elsewhere. Other side of town, maybe. Or Saints territory so stray bullets can count. Boom, revenge for the old days and getting rid of the crazies from our old crew- get rid of the Saints, get rid of most of the city's crime.”

“Funny. Dree had a different plan with that same outcome...” Troy pointed out.

“Then let's hear it,” Dex countered. “If your theory is so much better and cop-friendly and shit.”

“It ended up with me getting knocked the fuck out. We're not doing it again,” she explained. “We’re not going after my people on your bullshit terms either. You wanna get rid of Julius and my sister, fine, but the rest of the Saints are off limits. You wanna steer them away, you keep them out of Saints territory. You know what- bring them to Brotherhood territory.”

“Dree...” Troy scolded.

“No! Fuck you! I was playing nice, he played dirty. I can play dirty too!”

Dex turned to Troy for support. “What-“

Troy rolled up the sleeve of his shot arm to show the red mark from the bullet graze. “This happened after two “no”s from Julius when he gave us his 'end the Saints' pitch. He thought it would get Princess a little more talkative, I don’t know. He didn't count on it making her her more trigger happy.”

Dex nodded carefully. “That explains him ‘getting stiff in his old age’ or whatever he said when he agreed-”

“He agreed already?!” Audrey asked.

“Yeah, so right now we just need your sister. I’ve talked to some other people and we got a legit way of taking her out.”

Audrey shook her head. “No, my sister is mine, do you fucking understand me? You wanna get rid of Julius, fine, but leave Quinn to me.”

“Fine, then come with me. It'll be just like old times. I just need the Chief’s sign off on it.” He gave Troy a pointed look.

Troy stared back at him, then scoffed. When he realized that the other two were doing the same to him, he sighed and turned his attention to Audrey. “Dree...”

She latter saw the storm going in his head despite not being able to read him before she could even protest the look. It was just what the poor guy needed after she kept dragging him through the dirt.

Troy put his hands up. “It's your call. You wanted this shit, I just don't want much innocent blood but apparently that's too much to ask in this fucking city. Do what you wanna do. I'm gonna disappear for a few minutes. One or both of you better be gone by the time I get back.”

“The fuck, Troy?” Dex objected. “If Princess is here I figured you'd still be-”

“Don't,” Audrey warned. Dex looked at her, and she crossed her arms. “We've... that's a reoccuring talk. He's not sure, let's... keep our mouths shut about it, huh?”

Dex shrugged. “Whatever...”

Troy looked between them, heaved a sigh, and headed for the door. He opened it, then promptly slammed the door shut, thumped his head against it and groaned.

“What?” Audrey asked.

“... How many people did you run this idea by before me, Dex?” Troy asked.

“Just the head honchos... Fogel, well, and your second, just in case- Ron something.”

“Fuck!” Troy sighed.

“What?” Dex asked.

“What?! ' _What'_?! I'm the fuckin' chief of police and I have the third in command of the Third Street Saints hanging out in my fuckin' house when two of the most powerful people who can probably call this fuckin' bluff _are driving up the block right now_  and we're out of excuses or albis or fuckin' places for her to duck! And you're here this time, too-”

“With a plan to bring the Saints down. Hell, we can bring her in, too.”

“Right, because three ex-Saints, consequences be damned, hanging out and suddenly deciding, 'hey, down with our old or current people' is totally gonna fly.”

Dex tossed his hands up.

After a few seconds, Audrey perked up. “I got it!”

The men turned to her.

Audrey started shoving Dex towards the back door. “Dex, get out of here, wait a few minutes until after they get in, then knock on the front door and we'll get you, alright?” she instructed. She grabbed his arm and all but dragged him to the door. She was beaming, and the men were skeptical about the outcome if she looked that happy.

Dex shrugged again, then did as he was told.

Troy sighed and looked at Audrey. “The Hell's the plan?”

“Make you look bad, maybe a bit corrupt... depends on how your boys are gonna take it.”

“The Hell does that mean?”

She grinned, but it faltered. “Do you trust me?”

“Shit, you're gonna go there now?” Troy asked.

“Just answer the damn question.”

Troy stared at her for a few moments, then sighed. “Yes.”

“Good. Then let me run with this. Just... try to keep them away from the fridge side of the counter.

“Run with wha-” she leaned forward and kissed him, then had pushed off before he could even register it happened. He heard her scurry off behind him when his brain seemed to snap back on, and then there was a knock at the door and he tried to steel himself to respond. “Well, at least these guys knock...” he got the door, and was surprised that it actually was Dane that was standing in front of Ron on his doorstep. He had expected an assistant, the way the man fancied himself.

Dane did his usual smirk that always rubbed Troy the wrong way before he entered the house before Troy so much as invited him. “Hey, Chief. Rumor has it one of my boys wants a... bit of a collaboration to try and eliminate a common problem of ours. He needs your cooperation, and since I own some...” he laughed. “Let's be real, I own all of their old stomping grounds where he wants this thing to go down, and you're the big dog on the police force, I figured we all need to talk.”

“And you brought Ron with ya?”

His deputy offered an apologetic smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, then stepped inside when Troy motioned at him to do so. “Well, Boss, ya figure you're behind a desk most of the time, and we might need someone a little more involved.”

Troy contemplated decking him for the tone in his voice alone alone that just screamed he was after his job, but he figured it would end badly. “Can't argue with-”

“Baby! You're home!”

Troy turned at Audrey's voice but didn't have much time to react being that she had launched herself at him. It was an awkward fit for a few brief seconds when she tried to right herself with her arms around his neck and legs around his hips and him trying to balance her without sending them falling to the floor. He was suddenly very aware that she had somehow wet her hair and apparently _gotten naked_ and thrown a towel around herself in the few moments she had been gone from his sight. He had no idea where she was going with this, and he was terrified at this rate- more so when she leaned down to kiss him and all but shoved her tongue into his mouth when he had started to go slackjawed at the absurdity of the situation- and then she added a moan and ground her hips into his at a particularly unfair angle. There was a beat of absolute silence and stillness when he was most certainly not actually allowing himself to enjoy the moment despite the circumstances it came about it, then he felt her dig her fingernails into his neck. He had been around her far too long to know that wasn't an effort to get him to do something to help the situation. He settled for prying her off of him and she seemed perfectly happy trying to make it look like it took effort. “Uh... huh.... … _Babe_ , we got company.”

Audrey had the nerve to wink at him before putting on an over-exaggerated shocked, embarrassed look that he might've laughed at had it been another situation. She turned slowly and smiled at the two visitors.

Dane was hardly covering a predatory smirk of his own, and Ron went from looking pleasantly amused to calculating. Audrey caught the look and deflected it by looking down, selling it as further embarrassment. “Well, then, uh... I should go... get some clothes on. _Hi_!” she offered a quick wave before heading back down the hallway.

Troy wanted to gawk at her with the other two- albeit for completely different reasons. When he turned his attention back to the men and saw the cogs going in Ron's head and then Dane still staring down the hallway, he chose to get rid of the smaller issue first. He cleared his throat and shifted into Dane's line of vision.

To his surprise, Dane did look at him. “That's your girl, huh?”

“Mm-hm,”

Ron finally snapped out of his haze and cracked a smile. “Last I heard she was just a friend visiting from out of town.”

“Yeah, we liked privacy... and now that's wrecked,” Troy countered. He needed a drink. Multiple ones. Starting yesterday.

“Well if you ever get tired of that one, feel free to send her my way,” Dane chimed in with an obnoxiously fake chuckle.

Troy wanted to throttle the man- even without considering the fact that he and Audrey had moved to an etirely different... kind of something, as far as labels went. “I _won't._ ”

His smile faded. “Ah, chief's got himself a serious girl, then?”

“Yeah,” Troy countered. “Now why are you people here?”

“One of my boys has a plan to help get rid of the Saints,” Dane replied.

Troy wasn't sure how to handle how he had just flipped the business swith back on.

“We've tried. Hasn't worked. At all...” Troy pointed out.

“We haven't tried to get them to turn on each other,” Ron insisted.

Troy tried to look surprised. “And who's idea was this? What's the plan?”

“An old friend of yours. He shold've been here by now, if I remember correctly,” Ron said.

“I've got a lot of friends.”

“Not many of them got out of the Saints thanks to you and then got the number one spot on my security team.”

“Dex...” Troy nodded carefully.

Dane nodded. The doorbell rang, and he turned. “Well, that's probably him now.”

Troy went to get it, and when Dex was on the other side, looking just as confused as he was, he shrugged and stepped aside. “Let them do the talking...” he muttered.

Dex nodded and led the way back into the kitchen.

Sure enough, they went through the plan all over again, and for his own sake Troy hoped he looked as new to the information as he could. All it was supposedly going to take was a Hell of an argument and phone calls to Quinn and Julius. Troy just knew things weren't at all going to go as well as any of them were hoping. He knew Dex should've known that, too- or that's what he was counting on, too. Eliminate all of them. By the time things got settled, they had Dane's own mercenaries- funny that he didn't own up and call them that himself- and his own force. Things were going to end terribly for one side, at least. He was happy when Dex and Dane finally left, but kept on getting more worried when he realized Audrey hadn't even come back to continue with whatever story she had attempted to weave- and Ron still had yet to move, and was now watching him like a hawk. After a while, he sighed. “What is it, Ron?”

Ron advanced on him. “You know, I was gonna be careful about this. I was gonna keep everything under wraps and trust you- innocent 'til proven guilty and all that shit. But now- how fucking stupid do you think I am? Dane's a fuckin' idiot and would trust an obvious axe murderer, but I'm another. You're back with the Saints.”

“Excuse me?”

“The 'girlfriend', you going with the flow about Dex's plan, being absent, the fact that you just happen to not know shit about the Saints, you keeping Gat and those sisters alive, and oh, right, your girlfriend just happening to look like the younger sister. What. Do. You. Take. Me. For?”

“That's behind me, Pal. You should know that. And- fuck it, yeah, that's her. But if you haven't forgotten, her older sister tried to murder her a couple of months back. She wants to get back at her, using me is the way she's doing it.”

“Right, using you. That's not a good thing, pal. I mean I'm all for giving guys thinking with their dick the benefit of the doubt but-”

“I'm using her as an unofficial informant, Deputy,” Troy cut him off. “As in you, me and the rest of the blues. You and half the force don't want anyone in the Saints because they're afraid I turned on all of you by being around them. Next best thing, she comes to us.”

“And you fuck your informants, huh?”

“Added benefit,” Troy deadpanned. Ron wanted to play, he'd play.

Ron narrowed his eyes at him, then sighed. “You're walking a dangerous line, pal.”

“I've been walking it for a few years now, Ron. I can handle it. I know what I'm doing, and I'd appreciate it if you would let me do my damn job.”

Ron looked him up and down again, then finally backed off. “Fine, I'll let you do this for now. But know that if you do try to fuck with us, it's over. For you, the Saints, everyone.”

“I'm well aware of that.”

Ron nodded, then headed for the door. “I'll be seeing you, Boss.” He didn't wait for a response and left without another word.

Troy waited a few moments, then checked the windows to maker sure they were really gone before turning back. “Dree? Shit, Dree, we most definitely have a problem now!”. When there was no response, even three rooms and four shouters later, he groaned, already figuring what he was going to find. “No, don't fuckin' do this to me now...”. Sure enough, the last place he checked was his room and one of the windows- the one with the equivalent to a smooth climb down the ground- was wide open. He groaned again when he spotted that she had done a quick note in a patch of thin dust on one corner of the dresser: 'Can't let them all go down if Q brings cavalry to meet-up. You know that.'

He did. He just hoped that it meant that she wasn't going to go blabbing about the plan to the others. Friendship or not and whatever the Hell fucked up kind of loyalty he had, he needed Quinn out of the way- the city, Hell, the world, needed Quinn out of the picture.

He was just starting to wonder if it was worth all of the risks.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Shaundi stared at Audrey as the other woman went back and forth from parts of her room, apparently cleaning up after being ‘gone so long.’ “So… the fuck have you been anyway? Few months back you were tight with us, then suddenly the whole thing with your sister happened and now you’re only here every once in a while. We need our best picklocker, you know.”

Audrey stopped short to shake her head. “Why is everyone so surprised that I left you when my own fucking sister tried to murder me?”

Shaundi paused a moment, then shrugged. “Sounds like general family drama in our line of work. It happens, you move on easy, back to business,” she explained. She waited again, then leaned on the door. “Is it a dude? About damn time, girl. He give good dick, at least?”

“Shaundi…!”

“What? Girl’s gotta ask,” Shaundi countered. When Audrey remained silence, she frowned. “Wait, have you not fucked the guy yet? You’re spending all this time with him and nothing?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Men aren’t that complicated.”

“This one is.”

“Alright, fine, don’t tell me,” Shaundi countered.

The pair of them jumped when the door swung open wider and hit the wall with a crack. They turned to find Quinn in the doorway, SMG in one hand while strapping a pistol to her thigh with the other.

The older woman frowned at her sister. “There you fuckin’ are. Suit up. We’re gonna take care of some business.”

“What kinda business?” Audrey asked.

“We’re gonna pay a visit to our favorite Police Chief.”

Audrey tried not to choke on air. “What? Why?”

“Because we checked Police HQ’s blueprints and his office is only a floor down from where we need to be.”

“Be for what?” Audrey repeated.

“We’re gonna find General Fuckface’s limo using PD’s traffic cameras. We’re gonna hack in, and then I’m gonna pay Chief Bradshit a fuckin’ visit. Nothing says ‘hello’ like a bullet to the face.”

Audrey wanted to make a comment about likening it to a sword in the gut, but chose not to. She was going to need to be careful after that just got dropped into her lap as it was. “You sure we can’t pay the guy off? I mean, he’s let us live so far. We might be able to work something out if he’s soft on us.”

“Soft on us? Please, that’s an understatement. It would be too easy, almost,” Quinn countered, then paused. “Well, not soft on all of us. Hell, he was- ha, _hard_ on you, if anything, so… maybe that will work. Go find your shortest skirt and I’ll give you that leather tank I got and you can go work your magic.”

“I don’t do that shit anymore,” Audrey countered.

“Still worth a shot. Fine. We got this to worry about first, though. Get your gear so we can go.”

Audrey stared her down again for a moment. As far as she was concerned, the next conversation was a minefield. No, worse. A game of minesweeper. Being too careful could give too much away, but so could being tight lipped. It was a lose-lose situation any way she looked at it. She couldn’t talk her way out of not going on what was most likely going to be an assault on Police HQ, and she knew Quinn might change her mind about killing Troy if he was there faster than the drop of a hat. And if it came to that, she was going to betray them all over again, this time in a far more physical, literal sense. And then it would probably be an army or two against her. Pierce, part of her reasoned. Pierce might help if he knew the story. No one gave a shit about Pierce but her. That could count. Johnny- Johnny wasn’t ready for the field yet, and as much as she was a sister to him, his loyalty was still undyingly in Quinn’s favor. He would kill her if it came to it. So it was going to be two against _too many._ Still, it was better than one against those odds. “Pierce. We need Pierce on board.”

To her surprise, Quinn just shrugged. “Alright, fine. You call and get him, and we’ll follow up with you guys before we go in.”

“Fine. Meet by the old apartment?” Audrey asked.

“Deal,” Quinn countered. She got up and left without another word.

Shaundi waited a few moments, then looked at Audrey. She opened her mouth to say something, and then her eyes widened. “Holy fuck, is it Pierce?!”

“Wha- no!” Audrey punched her in the shoulder. “He’s just gonna be fuckin’ useful if we go in there.”

“In a hacking job? He’s cluless.”

“He can talk his way out of anything,” Audrey argued. Sure, it was an utter lie, but Shaundi was coming down from a high so deep that she just might believe it.

“… True.”

And there it was. She sighed heavily and pushed off of the bed. She had her backup plan to call.

* * *

 

To her surprise, Pierce was less than thrilled he had been recruited for the mission.  There was no manipulating him into thinking he would be helpful. He had barely been in the car she had stolen for the job five minutes before he was listing off why he should be back at home doing target practice with his new guns than tagging along.

“Just shut up Pierce. We just need someone competent instead of the usual flunkies.”

“Bu-“

“Just be happy I got you in the field, damn it.”

“…. Fine. But if we die it’s your damn fault.”

“Whatever.”

The two of them spent the rest of the trip to the sisters’ old apartment in silence. When they arrived, Quinn all but shoved jumpsuits at them. When asked, she started to rattle off the plan, choked on every third word, and looked to Shaundi for support. Shaundi wasn’t much better, but they got the gist this time: they were posing as tech support and were going into the server room to get all the info they needed and work from there. Simple enough. They all piled into the service van Quinn had stolen and made it in.

Audrey went from apprehensive to crippilingly nervous when they made it past the desk attendant with no issues. If something went that smoothly at the start, it was bound to go as wrong as possible. When they started up the stairs to the fourth floor, she looked around frantically: for quicker ways to get from floor to floor, for Troy, anything that would make the next few minutes of her life easier or get it over with quicker.

They had barely made it into the intended hallway before Quinn turned just the right way to accidentally show a passing officer one of the guns strapped to her waist.

Things immediately went to shit.

The cop who had made Quinn had immediately started shooting, not that Audrey could blame him. The other cops had blindly followed. She had barely made it to cover before a bullet had almost gotten her in the shoulder. She had apparently done a pretty good job of trying to focus on other aspects of the job, because she suddenly realized how slim their chances of survival were with three against a trained army.

That was, until Saints started pouring into the building. They had apparently seen Quinn tackle one of the officers over the second floor railing and down to the first floor. _Shit._ They were totally going to die with stunts like that or the fallout that came from them. She looked at the nearest staircase. She needed to find Troy, but how the Hell could she do that in the middle of a bloodbath with her sister running rampant and desperately wanting to end him?  “Fuck!” She turned around in place. “Shaundi!” the call was drowned out by more gunfire. “SHAUNDI!”

The other woman looked at her. A moment later, it was her turn to duck to avoid a bullet that missed her by an inch. “What?!”

“I’m going up to get rid of some of this traffic coming down from the other floors. Cover me!”

“You got it!” Shaundi called back.

Audrey bolted for the stairs and reached the third floor, attempting to fight off officers as she went. She grabbed what police batons she could and jammed them between door handles to follow up on her story. She made it to the media room and her heart skipped a beat when she saw that there were dead bodies scattered everywhere with bulletwounds dead center between their eyes- Quinn’s precision. “She couldn’t have gotten back up here so fast, what the fuck?!” she went to bolt for Troy’s office, and almost tripped over her own feet when the fact that she might run right into his dead body set in. “Oh, God…” she trailed off. “You know, you’ve never done me a fucking favor ever. Especially in the last six years so just do me this one solid and just… please, just let him be okay behind those doors, please. Yeah, he betrayed us as he deserves a lot of shit, but not this, so please…” she forced out. She couldn’t bring herself to walk on for a few moments until she forced herself to do so. She walked into his office, and her heart skipped all over again.

There was a body on the floor behind his desk, its upper body hidden from her particular viewpoint.

“No. No no no no no no no…” she forced herself to advance, and when she got close enough to the desk, stopped short again. She steeled herself and leaned over-

To find it was just some random patrol officer who had probably been sent into the office as bait. Still, her knees gave way and she let out something that was caught between a sob and a laugh.

He wasn’t there. There was a chance that he was still alive.

She looked up again and sighed, but the relief was short lived when she saw his computer was open to   a page that was packed solid with information. She inched closer, and when she realized it was centered on Troy’s information and namely his address, she wished she could’ve caught a single break in the last minute. “No you don’t, you psychotic fucking bitch…”

She marched out of the room, only to stop short when she heard a gun being cocked a matter of inches from her ear. She stopped short.

 “Uh uh uh, Sweetheart. You have to play nice now.”

She tried not to groan. It was Ron, that douchebag Deputy that had been even creepier back at Troy’s. She elbowed him hard enough in the stomach, and it was enough for him to drop the gun. She dropped to the floor and kicked the man’s legs out from him. “I am not here with them.  I just need information!” she snapped.

“What, where the money is? I’m surprised Troy hasn’t told you that. Is that why you’re here? He’s finally not telling you shit so you’re gonna kill him?”

She didn’t count on him recovering so quickly, because it was just about the very second that he hit the ground that he had spun to launch himself back to his feet. He took a swing at her with his fist.

She blocked it. “Where’s Bradshaw?!”

“What, so you can kill him before your sister?” He circled her again, then threw another punch. It landed on her shoulder.

She stumbled back. “So I can save his ass, you dick!” She hissed. She took her own swing at him, and he caught her fist and turned her so they were back to front again. “Get offa me!”

He shoved her down so she was kneeling, then put the gun to the side of her head again. “You really think I’m just gonna give up the Chief’s location to a Saint? You think I’m that fucking stupid? I’m not Bradshaw. I don’t get led around by the dick and accept anything a pretty face says.”

Says the guy that opened with calling me ‘Sweetheart.’ Audrey had to bite back voicing the comment hard. She decided not to play that game, but damn it, she would still play. She just needed to keep him looking at her face. She turned slowly to face the man, trying desperately to ignore the fact that it put the gun’s barrel a few inches from her nose. “No, I think you’re desperate enough for a promotion. Don’t pretend to care if he lives or dies today.”  She reached back as she went on to try to get to the gun she had stashed at the back of her waistband: ironically, Troy’s dumbest suggestion from years before.

“For the record, I didn’t wanna do this…” Audrey pointed out. “Let me make this abundantly clear. I am not my sister. You do not want another one of my sister on hand. You keep on bullshitting me, you will have one. So I will ask again: Where. Is. Troy?”

“He’s gonna be so fucking pissed when he finds out you guys took out HQ. Goodbye leniency for you. Tragic love story, by the way.”

“Fuck you,” she countered. She didn’t waste another second, using what energy she could spare to reach up and disarm him with a blow to the wrist, kicked his gun away, then brought her own gun up: Another lesson from Troy, but at least that one had been useful.  “You know what, you’ve been a dick from day one, so fuck me being nice. Option A: You tell me where Troy is, you and the Saints can work something out, I don’t shoot you in the fucking face.  Option B: You don’t tell me where he is, and I shoot you in the fucking face. You got me?”

“Fuck you,” he parroted, confident smirk and all.  

She smiled weakly and leaned back before promptly aiming her gun between his legs. She pulled the trigger without a second thought.

Ron wailed for a moment, and she continued to stare him down. “Where’s Bradshaw?!”

“You _shot_ me in the _dick_!”

“It’s not lethal. It just fucked up your sex life. Really, all I did was do women who go to bed with you a fuckin’ favor. Point is, you didn’t give me the answer I wanted. You fuck with me, I don’t fuck with you, I get to the point. That’s the only thing I have in common with my sister. That was your actual warning. You give me my answer, I won’t shoot you again. Now…” she pointed the gun at his forehead. “Wh-“

Ron tossed his hands out in front of him. “He’s home! Fuck, he’s home. Said he wasn’t feeling to well and we should call him there if shit went wrong!”

There was the sudden screech of tires from outside, and the pair of them looked out the window to see Quinn speeding around in her car.

“Looks like your sister figured that out, too.”

Audrey got to her feet and made her way to the doorway. She pointed the gun behind her and shot Ron one last time, this time in the shoulder.

“Agh! Bitch! You said you wouldn’t shoot me!”

“I lied…” she deadpanned before all but charging down the stairs.

* * *

 

She had just made it out and waved Pierce down when her phone rang.  Her rampage was promptly muted when she saw it was Quinn calling. She steeled herself before accepting the call. “What?”

“You following me?” her sister demanded.

“No, why should I?” Audrey countered.

“Because I have some fuckin’ news for you…”

Her heart sunk. “The fuck you talking about?”

“Get fuckin’ this: after all we just did, your old boyfriend wasn’t even that involved in blowing us to Hell…”

Audrey panicked for a moment. The tapes. She must’ve found the tapes on her way up to him. Had it really taken that long to get upstairs after her? “What do you mean?”

“Fuckin’ Julius! It was fucking Julius’ idea to blow us to Hell! That fuckin’ rat Dex got a deal going with Troy to get out, then Troy was gonna extend the offer to us through Julius, and Julius didn’t like it.”

This was not going to end well. Quinn had been on a beeline for Troy moments ago, now she still would to get answers, or to kill him for thinking they couldn’t stick it out as long as they had. But he had kept them alive. _Fuck, what am I gonna do?_ “You fuckin’ kidding me?!” she supplied after a moment.

“No. I don’t know what’s worse:  Your hero was gonna keep us fuckin’ alive, or that it was Julius that rigged the fuckin’ boat to blow. Julius fuckin’ killed us. Not Hughes, not your fuckin’ boyfriend. The bastard who recruited us.”

Audrey inhaled sharply and hoped it hadn’t gone through on the receiver. “So what the fuck’s the plan?” she asked, trying to sound as cold as possible.

“We start from the bottom and cap every single fucker involved in that story.”

 “When do we start and who’s coming with us?” Audrey asked. Pierce had finally made it passed her, and he was about to  wave a goodbye at her when she took his arm in a vicegrip and pulled him back. She waited again.  

“Just us. More poetic that way, don’t you think? I’d get Johnny involved, but he won’t be up for this shit yet, so it’s just us taking care of business.”

“Sounds like you have this all planned out,” Audrey mused.

“I fucking do. I’m not the Boss for nothing. Listen:  Dex called from the same fucking number he used to have back in the day. Same phone, I’m gonna call him and set up a meet, get Julius’ contact info because they probably still keep tabs on each other,  and well, bye-bye Dex and Julius.”

“What about Troy?” Audrey asked before she could stop herself, and once she realized she had said it, she flinched.

“Aren’t you a fuckin’ romantic. I think destroying all he’s worked for in the last five years is good enough for now, but… we’ll see how I feel in an hour. I mean, he did betray us too.”

“He also kept us alive, Quinn,” Audrey pointed out. “That means the fucker still cares.  We can probably pay the guy off and he can look the other way.”

Quinn was silent for a moment, then laughed. “You know, I like that plan. Go pay him a visit in that really short black skirt you have, see how it works then let me know.”

“Fine,” Audrey replied.

Quinn laughed again, then went silent. “Hold on, how the fuck do you know that he’s the one that kept us on life support and all that shit? Johnny only told me that.

Audrey went wide-eyed. Of course she would fuck it up, just like that. She had been semi careful, and now an entirely careless mistake had just ruined everything. _Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK. Lie. Just go all out and lie. “_ Well, remember the whole stabbing thing? I got curious and snooped on my way out.”  Who the fuck was going to believe that?”

“Uh… huh.”

“Hey,  you don’t believe me, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you, but I did, courtesy of you, so get off my ass about it. I’ll go pay him a visit, you get Dex and Julius. You were their number one, not me.” She tried to sound as bitter as possible to sell the comment more. She had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to work. 

“Meet up tomorrow to check in,” Quinn said, a little too quickly.

“Mm hm,” Audrey nodded, then promptly hung up. She waited a couple of more moments, then promptly rocked on her feet so hard she nearly had to double over.

“Shit girl, you okay? You get hit?” Pierce asked.

“No, Pierce. No I’m not, but I didn’t,” Audrey admitted.

“Then what the fuck…?”

She inhaled sharply then looked up to look him in the face. “Hey, Piercey, remember a while back when Quinn and the others basically told you to fuck off a bunch of times when they played the ‘Big Kid Mission?”

“Yeah…”

“Remember how you told me that it was just you and me in the long run, fuck everyone else, if worse comes to worse, you’ll have my back when no one else does?”

“…. Yeah…?”

“Well, worse has come to worse, and I’ve basically just signed two death warrants. One is me.”

“And the other one?” Pierce continued, looking completely and utterly lost.

“Just… promise me it’s still just you and me.”

“Bitch, panic attack or not I _will_ shoot you if you keep playing Twenty Questions with me.”

“ _Promise_.”

“Girl, fine, yes, you and me. Now who the fuck is the second?!”

She grabbed him by the collar and started to drag him towards the side exit just as the sound of sirens started up in the distance. “I’ll explain on the way.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I lost this chapter about three times between my hard drive crashing and other nonsense, so its not the best and it ends kinda abruptly, but hey, its here.

Pierce Washington knew three things for certain.

  1. Audrey was the only one in the Saints he knew he could put his entire trust in and (usually) not be disappointed in the end.  

  2. Audrey loved her precious Lola more than anything on the face of this Earth.  

  3. They were going to straight up die sometime in the next twenty minutes.



It was practically a given, Pierce realized as Audrey blew the fifth red light in a row as they sped uptown. She was endangering him, and more importantly as far as she was concerned, Lola, so she was undoubtedly being careless. Usually even if it was a chase and she was driving Lola, the occasionally crazy bitch would stop at red lights to avoid crashing her pride and joy. But this- this was bad. And insane. And he was starting to regret letting himself getting dragged along. At the sixth red light they went through, Pierce had finally had it.

“Girl, the fuck are we going?! Can you at least tell me who we’re seeing?!”

“Later.”

“You told me you’d tell me. Don’t give me that shit.”

“Shut _up_ Pierce!”             `

“Oh, and now you’re being like everyone else and expecting me to go along without any details. Hell no! You ain’t gonna do that to me! You want me to trust you, you tell me!”

Audrey settled for getting him to shut up by swinging Lola into the left lane of the highway.

 Pierce clocked his head on the window. He hissed and rubbed at it. He settled for glaring daggers back at her. “You know I’m gonna figure this shit out.”

“Then figure it out quietly.”

Pierce stared at her for a while, then frowned when she took another hard left after they drove over the bridge connecting the sides of town. “Hold on, why the fuck are we heading to the fancy part of town?”  His jaw dropped. “Wait, did Aish  fake her death again?! Was Gat putting on a show before?”

Audrey flinched at that, at least, then, “No…”

“Then who the fuck do we know up here?!”

“You don’t know them! I do!” Audrey countered.

Pierce stared at her. He was clearly pondering, then his puzzled look dropped to a stunned one. “Aw Hell no!”

“What?” Audrey countered.

 

“You goin’ to see that Bradshaw motherfucker, aren’t you- the Chief?” he clapped his hands on his knees and wasn’t sure whether to feel bad or not when she flinched at the noise. “Boy with that kinda money is the only one who could afford this shit! Man, the rumors _were_ true!”

Audrey eased off the gas for the first time in the last few minutes. “Rumors?! What rumors?” she asked.

Pierce frowned at her, and realized the way she suddenly looked far away that someone definitely knew about the apparent team-up and hadn’t said shit. Well, they were all doomed if the Saints were keeping secrets now. But this one? This one was hard. “That the Chief got to you and you were informing on us.”

Audrey opened her mouth, then shut it. “Who started that?!”

“The lower guys who were around when the Chief was running with us back in the day. Thought you two were a thing and thought that he found a way to exploit that.”

She hesitated, then sighed. “It’s not like that-“

“What, you two shacking up or him using you?”

“Either!” Audrey countered.  She hesitated again at his choice of words and her heart sunk. “If anything, I was exploiting him.” Saying it out loud almost physically hurt. She had known subconsciously, and she had knowingly admitted manipulating him to a point, but voicing it and having the nagging fear that Quinn was probably in the middle of putting a bullet in him at that moment made it all the worse. “Fuck, it was never like that. I got shot, I went to him for help, he took me in out of whatever loyalty to me he still had and looked after me ‘til I was better and went back to running with you guys when I still had his help as a backup plan.” _You exploited the fuck out of him_ , part of her added. And if he was still alive there was no way he was going to see the Police HQ attack as anything outside of being part of that exploitation. She wanted to vomit. _Troy’s never going to trust me again_. Her throat burned, and she blinked frantically to try to stop the tears from coming. “Fuck.”

“And  returning the favor now?” Pierce asked.  “Why the fuck did you even go to him if you had us-“

“BECAUSE IT SURE AS FUCK WASN’T ANY OF YOU AT MY BEDSIDE AFTER QUINN FUCKING RAN ME THROUGH IN HER EFFORT TO KILL ME!” Audrey shouted.

It was Pierce’s turn to jump.

Audrey scoffed. “Yeah, I know Quinn would’ve killed anyone who did, but none of you even tried. Christ, you’re supposed to me my non-blood family and you all failed to stand by me. I got the guy who betrayed us, and could’ve gotten killed by one of us, or had one of his coworkers get suspicious and end his career. So tell me, which one of those has more weight, huh?” she asked. “You’re damn right I went with the option who risked more and actually gave a shit.”

Pierce went to protest, but stopped. He let a few seconds of silence pass, then he sighed. “Shit, you’re in love with him.” When she let out another, weaker scoff, he arched an eyebrow. “What, you didn’t figure it out til I just said it? I thought you were the smart one.”

“Of course I didn’t realize it just now!” Audrey objected, then, quietly, “I realized it when we were in HQ and thought I saw his blood in his office.” That admission ripped open every other small tear in her emotions that had formed in the last hour, and her stomach lurched all over again. “And now I might lose him to the mother of all thorns in our sides.”  

Emotions all out in the open suddenly, Audrey finally paid more attention to their surroundings. She finally realized what had been strangely missing during their ride there. There had been no Saints cars going their way. In fact, there had only been the ones going slowly in the  opposite direction. And she hadn’t seen Quinn’s    anywhere.  As if she couldn’t feel worse, she suddenly felt something was very, very wrong. She glanced in the rear view mirror. No Saints cars trailing them, either.  She slowed down, and when they reached the next traffic light, she bothered to stop. It turned green and she  continued on.

She took the turn into Troy’s neighborhood and parked in front of a random house. Pierce awkwardly sat for a moment until Audrey reached over, opened the glove compartment and got her pistol and switchblade. She tucked the former in her waistband and the latter into her boot. She got out of the truck and glanced Pierce’s way. “You coming or not? I might really need you here.”

“You gonna shoot me if I don’t?”

“Already shot a guy’s dick off today, so maybe.”

Pierce practically threw himself out of the truck.

The pair of them made their way to the front door.

Pierce gawked at her yet again when she went over to the rain gutter, knelt down and retrieved a key that was on a hidden hook without missing a beat. “I- you two are that cozy?!”

Audrey shoved the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes behind her ears and glared up at him. “He’s my best friend and all of you were too fucking stupid to notice, are you really going to question this?! Christ, even Johnny didn’t have a clue until he actually saw us in the same room.” She put the key in the lock.

“Johnny knows?! How the fuck are both of you still standing if Johnny knows?!”  Pierce shrieked, just as she unlocked the door and shoved the door open.  He got a light punch to the abs in return afterward. When Audrey pressed a finger to her lips, he nodded and went quiet.

They advanced into the living room.  Audrey squinted, seeing that nothing was so much as disturbed. Something was very, very wrong. Ron didn’t seem like a guy who would lie when the choice was “tell the truth or die.” Then again, he hadn’t seemed too fond of Troy either, and if Troy died he’d get promoted. She had fallen for a fifty-fifty situation. Now she wasn’t so sure if she was the rescuer or executioner. He had played her like it was nobody’s business if it was the latter. He’d have to save a bullet for him. But that left Quinn to have fed her false information. At the same time, if Quinn had tipped off the gang, there should’ve been more carnage- any kind of carnage, at least. Nothing made a damn lick of sense. “Bradshaw?” she called. She wasn’t going to take any chances in being too familiar- not that the cat wasn’t most likely out of the bag already. She did a sweep of the first floor with Pierce at her heels, and wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or worried when there wasn’t a soul around. “Fuck. Bradshaw?!” she tried again. She headed for the stairs without another thought and barreled up them.

She nudged the guest room door open, nothing. The same with the bathroom. That left his own room left. “Shit…” She pushed Pierce back and made her way over to the said room. When she pushed her way into it, she found it empty as well. Her heart sunk again. Something was definitely wrong. He wasn’t there, no sign of break-in, he hadn’t been at HQ, where the Hell was he? Her eyes caught something in the window, and with further investigation she saw the hole in the glass that had started to spiderweb out. She swallowed hard when she realized the caliber was a little too similar to her own sniper rifle- which could have easily made that shot. And now she was getting set up for trouble that wasn’t even there. She groaned and turned on her heel and bolted down the stairs-

Only to get clotheslined from around the corner when she arrived at the landing.

Someone caught her on her way down, and she was dimly aware of Pierce yelling something and two guns cocking from behind her. She glanced down at the arm around her and let out a confused, yet relieved laugh when she recognized it was Troy’s. She spun, too high on adrenaline at the moment to notice the alarmed grunt that she had managed to do so. She took a split second to see if he was okay, and when he seemed unharmed, she let out a relieved laugh and launched herself at him before she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh God, I thought you were dead!”

“Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ bet you did…” Troy scoffed.

Audrey stared at him for a while, and her heart sunk when one, he wasn’t even half-heartedly returning the hug like he usually did, and two, he was looking at her like she had betrayed him. So the wrong bits began now. When he finally looked her in the eye, he immediately looked away. It took her a moment to realize he hadn’t so much as gone to support her weight. She eased off of him and backed up a few steps, more for his benefit than her own. When she looked him over again, her eyes fell on his gun at his hip; and more importantly, his hand on it, and his finger ready to go on the trigger. Yes, much worse than expected. “Troy, I can totally explain this.”

Troy shook his head. “You know, the worst part is that I actually started to believe that you weren’t playing me this entire time, even before… the last time we saw each other. You’re fuckin’ here to kill me? Yankin’ my chain this whole time wasn’t enough? Had to add insult to injury?”

“Considering you just clotheslined my girl, yeah, asshole!” Pierce objected from behind them.

Troy glanced up at him, visibly panicked for a moment. When Pierce did nothing more than stare and apparently gauge the situation, he looked back at Audrey. “What, he here to make sure you finish the job, or do it if you can’t?”

Audrey flinched. She hadn’t even considered that that conclusion was the most easy to come to. “I know this looks bad, I’m- _we’re_ not here to kill you,” Audrey insisted.

“Really? ‘Cause one of your bullets missing my head by about three inches ten minutes ago says otherwise,” Troy countered.

“I- was framed?” Audrey countered. She wanted to gag at how fake it all sounded.

Troy shook his head, unconvinced, then nodded towards the living room, where they could hear a news report on the attack on HQ going on. “And _that_?”

She flinched. “I fucked up. I may have given away… this after we did that,” she explained, gesturing between them, than the T.V. “No idea how she beat me here, but that might’ve been her trying to look like me,” she finished. “And the… uh, shootout-“

“Massacre,” Troy corrected.

Audrey flinched, then sighed. “I had… relatively nothing to do with that. It was supposed to be a grab and go with information on… fuck, whatever it was, and then she went and made everyone start shooting. I was trying to get to you the whole time to make sure you were safe.”  She fought back the wave of nausea when she remembered the bloodpool in his office.

Troy scoffed. “Yeah, the security footage begs to differ. Christ, how stupid do you think I am?”

 “I wasn’t even on the same floor when it started until the last stretch! Quinn was gonna kill two birds with one stone, I was going to stop her! Hell, that shot was probably her!” she motioned at the window.

There was dead silence for a while, and Pierce was the one to break it. The pair of them had done a damn fine job purposefully ignoring him up til then, so he had figured he wasn’t going to get involved in their particular drama. “So uh… do you two-“

His answer was a resounding twin, “OUT!”  and he promptly bolted for the door.

Audrey waited to hear him descend the stairs and the front door open and shut before she made eye contact with Troy again. When she saw he was far more focused on Pierce leaving. “He’s not gonna go telling Quinn where you are or anything. You’re still safe.”

“Yeah, well, now I can’t even take your word for it, can I?” Troy asked.

“I never gave you reason not to trust me before this.”

Troy scoffed and shook his head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“ _Before_ we made the deal where the lies stop. Damn it Troy, trust me.”

“You and your damn people just killed my people, Audrey _.”_

For some reason, it was that that statement that had Audrey’s thought process skid to a halt. After all of the accusations already that was the most offensive thing so far, and it hadn’t even been about her directly. She didn’t see him as the kind of bastard who would flip flop loyalties and than have one , granted, monumental event, make up his mind- much less to rule against her. But it wasn’t like the odds were in her favor either. Still, it hurt like a bitch, and everything promptly came up to the surface in return. “FUCK. THAT!”  she countered. “They are not your people! The Saints aren’t your people, either. Or mine. I am your people, and you’re mine! So you know what? You don’t get to do that to me. You don’t get to  fucking… suddenly pledge your loyalty with the guys who you’ve bitched to me about not entirely being behind… or in charge of, for that fucking matter, just to dig up reasons not to trust me over this!” she snapped. When he continued to watch her silently, she sighed. “Don’t you think I would’ve tried to kill you yet if I was lying? Would’ve come clean at this point?” she counted. “… And fuck, you know how good I am with the McManus. You know I wouldn’t fucking miss!” she blurted. After a beat, she realized that particular point was well, pointless, and could break her more than make her.  She shifted uncomfortably, then realized if she was going to get anywhere, she needed to get her weapons out and away in his sight. Shit. “You want my gun and knife to ensure that? Fine. That’s all I brought here in my rush to save your stupid ass!” She reached behind her, and when he moved his gun up, she looked him in the eye and carefully took the gun from her belt and held it up. She ejected the magazine without breaking eye contact, then retrieved her knife and jammed it into the coffee table. “I’ve got nothing left now. You know that.” When he still didn’t look convinced, her heart broke even more. “I don’t wanna fight anymore. I meant it before. No more lies, no more fighting. I stuck by that. I need you to believe me. Just… tell me how to fix this. I don’t wanna lose you. I _can’t_ lose you. You’re my fucking rock, alright?! So please…” she  finished. She contemplated dropping the L-bomb just as an extra bit to play a bit dirty, but decided against it. “ _Please_.”  

He was silent for a while, then sighed and lowered his gun.

Audrey was relieved for a few moments until she realized that it could’ve been a negative for her case. Yeah, he wasn’t pointing it at her, but they had done a Hell of a lot of verbally fighting things out.  The whole thing might have still been the beginning of the end. She watched him put his gun down next to hers, and tried to focus on the fact that it might’ve been a positive.

 He waited again, then ran a hand over his face, apparently considering her question. “I don’t fucking know, Audrey.  Get a fucking time machine, go back to the day we fuckin’ met, when you see that turf war go down just fuckin’ run, leave Quinn behind, don’t come to me when your sister stabs you, don’t fuckin’ save my life so many times on the job. Don’t fuckin’ ruin your life, don’t _\- fuck_.” He cut himself off and looked down at the floor.

Audrey successfully fought the natural instinct to arch an eyebrow at that particular transition. The poor bastard couldn’t catch a break. And of course she had gone from claws out to sympathizing after his outburst. Her own need to help him was taking over, even with all the anger floating around. They were so, so fucked up. “Wouldn’t work,” she countered. When his frown deepened, she shrugged. “Back then my sister and I were a package deal. Where she went, I did, so this shit was inevitable, with or without you.  I hated it most of the time, but I could’ve walked. And you saved my life more than I saved yours, so I owe you that, at least. We’ve been over this.” They had, but this was finally The Talk. The one where all the emotions and accusations came out and goddamn it, they were going to resolve it if it killed her. Literally.

“I encouraged it. I should’ve gotten you the fuck out of there the first time we were alone together after we got you in.”

“You almost did. The Carnales’ attack stopped that, remember?”

That had been his next confession after the rushed “Hey, I’m actually an undercover cop, I’m not fucking with you, just come with me and get out before this goes to shit’” conversation they had had before Hughes’ boat had gone up: they had gone to Freckle Bitches to shoot the shit and he had apparently planned to come clean until a Carnales car had come through the window aimed at _them,_ so Troy’s plan had failed _._

Troy stared, considering, then shook his head. “The yacht, the _bomb_ -“

Audrey shook her head. “Julius again. And the proof of that is arguably the reason I’m standing here right now. And… I’m gonna fucking do something about Julius, but not now,” she explained. When he still looked torn, she sighed. She had talked him down so far, now to bring him down about the current issue. “Just… this was- I just thought it was going to be some smash and grab thing. I didn’t realize that we were going to… end half of the police department. I just need you to believe me. I know I’ve said that a lot lately but I just really need that now.”

Troy continued to stare, then glanced at the floor.  “Dree…”

Her heart finally leapt at the nickname. She had never been so happy to hear it. She had lunged forward and kissed him, emotional rollercoaster be damned- until she realized that again, it could’ve been a bad or good thing at that current moment. Then again, he hadn’t shoved her away just yet. He was, however, absolutely stock still. And when he finally came around and started to return it-

His cell phone rang at his hip.

Audrey wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry or take his phone and destroy the damned thing, but took Troy’s amused scoff against her mouth as a vote for the former. 

He pulled back and checked the screen. “Ron…” he announced.

Audrey raised her eyebrows. “Well, if he got to a phone, this… well, uh, there’s uh, more to the- just remember I did it for you, okay?”

Troy made a face that was so close to his old confused one from back in the day she had to hold back a laugh. He shook his head, and picked up the phone. “What’s-“

Then, clear as day due to the man’s screaming came, “ _YOUR PSYCHOTIC GIRFRIEND SHOT MY DICK OFF!_ ”

Troy’s attention snapped to Audrey, who merely shrugged again. “She what?”

“ _When I was at HQ when the shit hit the fan BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DO YOUR FUCKING JOB RIGHT AND STAY IN THE OFFICE THE WHOLE FUCKING DAY. FUCK YOU, MAN. FUCK YOU AND HER, YOU TWO HEADCASES DESERVE EACH OTHER!”_

“Wha-“

 _“When the rest of the Saints were shooting our people to Hell, she went to your office looking for you_.”

Troy looked at Audrey again, and in turn, she tried not to bounce on her heels in victory. For an asshole, he sure was saying all the right things. And so loudly for a guy who had probably just lost loads of blood. Probably the adrenaline or morphine talking.

Ron was still ranting. “ _-wasn’t gonna give you up, but then she put a gun to my head, so what the fuck was I supposed to do?! Cause fuck It, when your corrupt ass gets kicked out of here who’s gonna pick pick up the pieces huh?! ME! Because you SURE AS FUCK CAN’T BE TRUSTED AND SHE CAN’T EITHER! NO ONE FUCKING TRUSTS YOU, JUST LOOK AT WHAT YOU FUCKING LET HAPPEN, YOU FUCK_!”

Troy was silent for a while. His eyes hadn’t left Audrey’s. He moved the phone closer to his ear so the rest of the rant was muffled. After a while, he closed his eyes. “You want my fucking job, Ron?”

The screaming suddenly stopped. There was finally silence, and then another clear, “what?”

“You want my fucking job? You want to deal with all this shit better than me? Fine. Take it.”

Audrey frowned. “Troy-“

Troy motioned at her to keep quiet, then turned his back. “My final act as chief is demoting myself to your underchief, fuck, even patrol officer, I don’t give a fuck. There, you won. Happy? …. We’ll work it out… I don’t know, but we will… I just said I do-  aaannnd there’s the doctor, I’m assuming,” He finished, pulling away from the phone as he went.  He turned back to Audrey. “Well, that must’ve been a Hell of a lot of bloodloss that you caused.”

Audrey leaned forward. “Did you just… quit?”

“Didn’t quit. Just demoted myself to be out of the spotlight. Stillwater would want justice anyway, so there it is, in Stillwater’s special political way.” When she didn’t look convinced, it was his turn to shrug. “Just sorta… clicked when he said that the others didn’t trust me.  I knew, but… maybe I just needed to hear it. The pair of you are right, they aren’t my people. Not exactly. They were still friends, but not… not like any of you. I’m more Saint that I am cop. I’ve said it before, but…I dunno. Just didn’t want to believe it til now.”

Audrey couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her. “Really? I say all that shit and you yell at me, and then he says it when he’s basically high as fuck and it’s all good?”

Troy hesitated then shrugged. “For now, yeah.  This time it was an outside source,” Troy supplied, with the faintest hit of a smile.  It faded after a moment. “What the fuck was I supposed to think? You even told me one of your takeover plans involved exterminating cops.”

“Quinn was there. You should’ve known I wouldn’t have followed through with the biggest obstacle to that literally in the room with me. Besides, I had changed my mind to ‘only ones who couldn’t be bought off,” Audrey countered.

Troy shook his head. “Well then, it still would’ve looked bad to everyone if the full Chief just happened to be… involved with the Boss or third in command or whatever the fuck you are or will be, and… I just… I chose, alright? I was worried, I got my answer, and now… it just clicked that I needed to choose, and well, so help me, it was you at the end, because I fuckin’ realized in the last five years of my fuckin’ life you’ve been there for the more positive shit so-“

She was on him in a moment.  It was only slightly less of a disorganized sudden mess than their first kiss a few days ago, but more so than the one seconds ago. It helped immensely that this time he was giving as good as he got. She allowed a muted giddy laugh, more so when his hand dug into her hip.

“You know something’s about to interrupt again, right?” Troy asked the first time they broke.

She slipped the phone from his hand and threw it into the chair across from them. “Pierce won’t say shit, and if Quinn really did want to end one of us because she figured shit out or went after you, we’d be dead by now. I’ll deal with it later.”

“Bu-“

“Later.” She repeated, then promptly yanked him back to her by the belt.

He met her halfway again, then scoffed when she steered him towards the couch and shoved him onto it. She yanked her shirt over her head, tossed it in the corner and proceeded to straddle him.

Troy, who had no issue of where the entire thing was headed, still took hold of her hips after giving her a quick once over. “We actually doing this?”

“Uh huh.”

“Please tell me this wasn’t part of your goddamn plan to get me thinking with my dick instead of-“

“It wasn’t,” she said firmly, then paused. “ _Trust me_.”

Troy hesitated, then ran a nervous finger over her hip before he sighed. “I do.  Part of me still thinks I shouldn’t, but damn it, I do.”

She beamed and swooped back down on him.

They broke again, and Troy gave her a gentle push, more to stop her briefly than to get her away. “My couch? Really?”

“That doesn’t sound like a complaint. And considering everyone had bets going that we'd fuck on Julius' desk back in the day, we’ve upgraded,” Audrey pointed out.  She started unbuttoning his shirt, figuring he wouldn’t be too happy with her just yanking it off.

Troy shook his head. “I think this qualifies us as the most fucked up couple on the Row.”

She stopped. “Oh, so we’re a couple now?”

Troy looked shell shocked for a moment. “I-“

“I’m kidding,” Audrey reassured him. “I mean mostly. Let’s fucking face it, this way or not we’ve been a couple for a while now,” she continued, and when he looked contemplative, she kissed him to stop it. “And besides, we’re at least second most fucked up couple.”

“Who-“

“Johnny and Quinn,”

“ _Really_?”

“Troy.”  

“I mean I guess it makes sense with them-“   

“ _Troy_ ,”

“What?”

“Shut up for once in your life.” 

“Statistically impossible.”

She laughed. “Excuse you, you have _this_ on top of you. You’d better,” she insisted, gesturing at herself.

“Eh.”

“Can we get to the sex now or not, you ass?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

 


End file.
